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Kavita Sivaramakrishnan. Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab, 1850-1945. New Perspectives in South Asian History, no. 12. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005. xiv + 280 pp. Rs795.00 (81-250-2946-X).
Old Potions, New Bottles shows how indigenous medical practice in north India became polarized during the late colonial period into three separate systems, each of which claimed an antique heritage and was associated with a particular language tradition and religion. Ayurveda came to be seen as a system rooted in Sanskrit and Hindi and was practiced and used by Hindus. Yunani Tibb was depicted as an Arabic system, associated with the Urdu language and Islam. Punjabi Baidak claimed itself to be a distinctively Punjabi system, rooted in Sikh culture and religion. In the process, each tried to associate itself with particular nationalisms-Indian, Pakistani, and Punjabi Sikh. Although the nationalist leaders themselves were not always enthusiastic in their response-as they...