Nair Aparna
Med Hist. 2017 Apr;61(2):181-199. doi: 10.1017/mdh.2017.1.
This paper explores the social, medical, institutional and enumerative histories of blindness in British India from 1850 to 1950. It begins by tracing the contours and causes of blindness using census records, and then outlines how colonial physicians and observers ascribed both infectious aetiologies and social pathologies to blindness. Blindness was often interpreted as the inevitable consequence of South Asian ignorance, superstition and backwardness. This paper also explores the social worlds of the Blind, with a particular focus on the figure of the blind beggar. This paper further interrogates missionary discourse on 'Indian' blindness and outlines how blindness was a metaphor for the perceived civilisational inferiority and religious failings of South Asian peoples. This paper also describes the introduction of institutions for the Blind in addition to the introduction of Braille and Moon technologies.
本文探讨了1850年至1950年英属印度失明问题的社会、医学、机构和统计历史。首先利用人口普查记录追溯失明的概况和成因，接着概述殖民地医生和观察者如何将传染性病因和社会病理归因于失明。失明常常被解读为南亚无知、迷信和落后的必然结果。本文还探究了盲人的社会世界，尤其关注盲人乞丐这一形象。本文进一步审视传教士关于“印度”失明问题的论述，并概述失明如何成为南亚人民被视为文明 inferiority（此处原文有误，应是inferiority，意为劣势）和宗教缺陷的隐喻。本文还描述了盲人机构的引入以及盲文和穆恩盲字技术的引进情况。
