The Calcutta Pococurante Society: Public and Private in India’s Age of Reform

By Joshua Ehrlich

Joshua Ehrlich on an obscure text found on the shelves of a Bengali library and the light it sheds on the idea of the "public" in 19th-century Calcutta. more

W. B. O’Shaughnessy and the Introduction of Cannabis to Modern Western Medicine

By Sujaan Mukherjee

Cataleptic trances, enormous appetites, and giggling fits aside, W. B. O'Shaughnessy's investigations at a Calcutta hospital into the potential of medical marijuana — the first such trials in modern medicine — were largely positive. Sujaan Mukherjee explores the intricacies of this pioneering research and what it can tell us more generally about the production of knowledge in colonial science. more