Discourse on Health Care of Women and Children in Colonial Bengal as Reflected as Reflected in Contemporary Bengali Journals (1875-1930)

Paper Abstract: The introduction of western medicine in colonial India gestured to a new set of concerns about women and child's health and mortality. Despite a resistance to western medical knowledge, it came to exert an increasingly powerful hold  over the bodies and minds of the people to  tailor their thoughts, feelings and desire. Reproductive health became  imbued with a new value for the individual and the household, the community and the nation.  This new discourse was reflected in a range of Bengali journals of that period. 
Certain major issues of women and child health like Anturghar (segregated room in the house earmarked for childbirth), role of the Dais (Midwives, usually untrained), dietary regimes of expecting mothers, occurrence of common diseases leading to miscarriage were some of the important areas of concern of the journals. Domestic space was being disciplined by cleanliness or  tidying. Information and use of new allopathic drugs were discussed in detail. The pre-colonial casual attitude towards childbirth was gradually being replaces by a more pedagogical approach. This paper proposes to look at a select number of contemporary journals in order to reflect how a health care discourse was framed, what was its defining features, and how it tried to influence the sociology of medical care of Bengali women and children.