My current interest is in pioneering proponents of Indian indigenous drugs. In this area, I have already carried out studies on Kanny Lall Dey,1 Udoy Chand Dutt,2 Edward John Waring,3 and Moodeen Sheriff.4 My most recent research pertains to the life and contributions of Whitelaw Ainslie.
I was drawn to studies on Ainslie through references made to him in the Indian Medical Gazette in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.5 Specifically, a reference was made to Ainslie’s Materia Medica of Hindoostan published in 1813, and Materia Indica, published in 1826, both of which hold contemporary interest.
The writings on the life and contributions of this pioneer proponent of Indian indigenous drugs have been very sparse. A helpful publication by Dr. D. V. Subha Reddy on the subject has come to my attention,6 and most of the information on the life of Ainslie in this note has been drawn from this source.
Biographical Sketch
Whitelaw Ainslie was born on 17 February 1767 at Dunse, Berwickshire, where his father, Robert Ainslie was Factor to Lord Douglas. At a young age, in 1787, he received the Certificate of the Corporation of Surgeons of England (C.C.S.), the institution that later in 1800 became the College of Surgeons of England. Soon Ainslie secured a commission in the medical service of the East India Company and joined as Assistant Surgeon on 17 June 1788. He was assigned to the Madras Medical Establishment, where he served during the next quarter of a century in various parts of South India. At some point he received his M.D., probably from Edinburgh University.
On joining the Madras Medical Establishment, he was appointed Garrison Surgeon at Chingulput, a town about 40 miles south of Madras. In 1789, he was on an expedition with “Operations” in Ganjam, and he transferred to Ganjam in 1792. Ganjam at that time was located in the northern extremity of the Madras province, but later became part of the Orissa state. In October 1794, he was promoted to the grade of Surgeon. During the next decade and half, his diligence and devotion to military medical duties won recognition and appreciation from the East India Company. He was made Superintendent Surgeon in 1810. Four years later (1814), he was named Superintending Surgeon of the Southern Division of the Army (Madras).
Ainslie retired on 26 February 1815. In 1816, the Court of Directors of the East India Company awarded him a sum of 600 guineas as an indication of their regard for the valuable services he had rendered to the Company.
Even under the difficult conditions of service and with all the serious handicaps of military service—no libraries at hand, for example— he seems to have done an enormous amount of reading. He was amazingly productive, making acquaintances among the learned people in the Telugu country, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, collecting and arranging an enormous amount of information, and producing reports and books.
Ainslie was a prolific author. His medical writings include: The use of Balsam of Peru (1811); Edible Vegetables (1811); Materia Medica of Hindoostan (Madras 1813); the Report on the Course of Epidemic Fever, in conjunction with A. Smith and M. Christy, which was used in the provinces of Coimbatore, Madurai, Dingigul, and Tinnivelli (1809, 1810, 1811), 8 volumes published in London, 1816; Observations on the Cholera morbus of India (London, 1825); Materia Indica, 2 volumes (London, 1826); and “Medical Observations,” in Murray’s Historical and Descriptive account of British India (London, 1832).
After his retirement, he continued to pursue his favorite medical subjects and occasionally occupied himself in literary writing. By 1826, he was M.R.A.S. (Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland) in recognition of his scholarship in Oriental learning. In 1835, he wrote an account of the history of the introduction of Christianity into India. Ainslie was knighted on 10 June 1835, and he died on 29 April 1837 in London.
A recent publication by Ramya Raman and Anantanarayan Raman,7 discusses Ainslie’s cataloguing of the vegetables of India in 1810. At that time he planned to develop his catalogue as a medical treatise, aimed at establishing a relationship between food particulars of Indians, climate, and the diseases that were prevalent in India. This catalogue was submitted to the Government of Madras, and his notes have been archived at the British Library, London. Brief accounts follow here on Ainslie’s Materia Medica of Hindoostan and Materia Indica.
Materia Medica of Hindoostan
While I was searching for archival material in general, I came across an original copy of Ainslie’s Materia Medica of Hindoostan and Artisan’s and Agriculturist’s Nomenclature (1813),8 at the Calcutta Medical College Library. Because of its delicate condition, I was allowed to have photocopies made only of some pages. What follows here is based upon the limited number of pages I have at my disposal of this now rare publication.
The book is a catalogue and an account of medicines of the British Materia Medica that were either produced from Hindoostan, brought there from Asiatic countries, or found in the bazaars of populous towns. It included many drugs of the Tamil, Arabian, and Persian Materia Medica, as well as the names given by locals to different articles in the diet, and to other products necessary for comforting the sick, and the appellations bestowed on those materials that were employed in arts and manufacture. To this was added, in the Tamil, Telugu, Dukhani, English, and Latin languages, other catalogues of the products of the vegetable kingdom, which were used as food by the inhabitants of these provinces. The book concludes with an Appendix, in which are contained the titles of diseases in Tamil, Dukhani, Telugu, and English, together with a list of Malabar, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit medical works; a table of Doses and Weights, with the various forms of Prescriptions etc., in use among the Indians.
Title page of Materia Medica of Hindoostan and Artisan’s and Agriculturist’s Nomenclature.
I have photocopies of selected pages from the 391 pages of the book, with a Latin Index placed at the end. Before that, there are English and Tamil Indexes, but these copies are not in my possession.
Materia Indica
Ainslie’s treatise, Materia Indica, was first published in 1826 (London) in two volumes. None of these in their original were available to me. Because of the demand for them, some publishing houses in India have brought out reproductions.9
In his preface to the Materia Indica Volume I, Ainslie wrote,
This publication is, properly speaking, the second edition of that which was printed in India, in 1813, under the title of “Materia Medica of Hindoostan and Artisans’ and Agriculturists’ Nomenclature” but as much new, and, I trust, interesting matter has been obtained since that time, in the various branches treated of, I have thought it advisable to give the book a somewhat more comprehensive appellation.
The very flattering manner in which the Madras edition was received by all the high authorities in India, the general utility of which it was found in that country, the subsequent approbation it met with from the Honourable the Court of Directors, and the numerous applications that have been made for it since out of print, have induced me to lay before the public this enlarged, and I hope, much improved work.
Ainslie noted that the book is divided into three parts:
the first of these comprehends such of our drugs as are found in India and Eastern territories [italics in original]: in it I have attempted to give some account of their different uses amongst inhabitants of those regions, and have also noticed several articles of diet as the most proper for the sick and delicate. In fact, it has been my study, to best of my ability, to supply what has long been wanted, a kind of combining link between the Materia Medica of Europe and that of Asia.
This part forms the bulk of the volume with other parts being, Metals and Metallic Substances found in India and other Eastern countries; and Formulae, with practical observations. Ainslie’s Volume II, brings out further the erudite learning he acquired concerning Indian and eastern materia medica. He delves deeply into the mythology and ancient history of issues connected with medicines and writings. The major part of the book covers the short descriptions of medicine in use amongst Hindoos and other Eastern nations. Next there are catalogued books in various Eastern languages connected with medicine and other sciences, and lists of medical and other books of Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian and Arabic, and medical works in the hands of native practitioners of Ceylon. There is a chapter on names of diseases in various Eastern languages.
Title page of Materia Indica, Volume I.
Sample entry from Materia Indica, Volume 2 for the Indian plant Perin Panel.
Last, there are carefully prepared English and Latin Indexes, spread over nearly fifty pages, covering the entries in the Volumes 1 and 2 of the Materia Indica.
Cover page of Dr. Whitelaw Ainslie’s “Second Treatise on the Edible Vegetables of India” prepared in 1813-14. The government of Madras favorably recommended this treatise to the East India Company’s Court of Directors. Original Manuscript digitized by the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Default.aspx.
Footnotes
↵1. Harkishan Singh, “Kanny Lall Dey—Pioneer Proponent of Indigenous Drugs,” Indian Journal of History of Science, 50 (2015): 410-419.
↵2. Harkishan Singh, “Udoy Chand Dutt – Prominent Indian Materia Medica Promoter,” Indian Journal of History of Science, in press.
↵3. Harkishan Singh, “Edward John Waring (1819 – 1891),” Pharmaceutical Historian, in press.
↵4. Harkishan Singh, “Moodeen Sheriff,” Pharmaceutical Historian, in press.
↵5. B. D. Basu, “On the Study of Indigenous Drugs,” Indian Medical Gazette, 28 (1893): 336-338. Kanny Lall Dey, “Indian Pharmacology,” Indian Medical Gazette, 30 (1895): 25-28. D.G. Crawford, “Indian Medical Service,” Indian Medical Gazette, 42 (1907): 355-357. “What the Indian Medical Service has done for India,” Indian Medical Gazette, 47 (1912): 226-229.
↵6. D. V. Subba Reddy, “Dr. Whitelaw Ainslie, M.D., M.R.A.S. and his contributions to Materia Medica and History of Medicine in India, Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of Medicine, 2 (1972): 35-51.
↵7. Ramya Raman and Anantanarayanan Raman, “A Western science-based Materia Medica by Whitelaw of the Madras-Medical Establishment published in 1810,” Current Science, 107 (2014): 909-913.
↵8. Whitelaw Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindoostan and Artisan’s and Agriculturist’s Nomenclature (Madras: Government Press, 1813). Published by Special Permission of the Government of Madras. Available online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/materiamedicahi00ainsgoog
↵9. Whitelaw Ainslie, Materia Indica, Volume I (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826; reproduced by Periodical Expert Book Agency (Delhi: 1986): xxiv+654. Whitelaw Ainslie, Materia Indica, Volume II; reproduced by Neeraj Publishing House (Delhi 1984): xxxix + 593. Original Available online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/b2136509x_0
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