{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,13]],"date-time":"2025-05-13T21:49:06Z","timestamp":1747172946022,"version":"3.40.5"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]],"date-time":"2023-10-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1697155200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":12,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med. Hist."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,10]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>This article explores missionary medical discourses in three Telugu journals published in the early twentieth century, to analyse how caste pivoted denunciations of alcohol, especially toddy and arrack, in the Madras Presidency and the Hyderabad state. It argues that one women\u2019s missionary journal, <jats:italic>Vivekavathi<\/jats:italic>, deployed medical knowledge to formulate subtle and occasionally explicit condemnations of toddy and arrack as unclean and unhealthy substances. The journal relied on universal medical and missionary, British and American knowledge frameworks to mark out Dalits and other marginalised castes as consumers of these local beverages. This stigma was conjured through medical narratives of marginalised castes as lacking in the knowledge of alcohol\u2019s relation to digestion, toddy\u2019s role in ruining maternal and child nutrition, the unhygienic environment of arrack shops and their propensity to \u2018alcoholism\u2019. However, this article also traces counter-caste voices who too invoked \u2018the power of the universal\u2019 to dispel caste stigma against marginalised castes. While both sets of voices deployed medical \u2018enslavement\u2019 to alcohol as an interpretive move, they differed in their social imperatives and political imaginaries, defined in caste terms. This article explores a third set of implications of the term \u2018universal\u2019 by analysing global medico-missionary narratives of alcohol in two other Telugu journals. On a methodological plane, this article also pushes for a hybrid reading of what counts for \u2018scientific instruction\u2019, where hymns, catechisms, parables and allegories are considered alongside conventional scientific experiments. In that sense, it upholds vernacular missionary publications as an invaluable resource for the social history of medicine.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2023.30","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]],"date-time":"2023-10-13T07:28:39Z","timestamp":1697182119000},"page":"324-346","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The power of the \u2018universal\u2019: caste and missionary medical discourses of alcoholism in the Telugu print sphere, 1900\u20131940"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"67","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6034-7573","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tarangini","family":"Sriraman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]]},"container-title":["Medical History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0025727323000303","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]],"date-time":"2023-10-13T07:28:42Z","timestamp":1697182122000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0025727323000303\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,10]]},"references-count":0,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,10]]}},"alternative-id":["S0025727323000303"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/mdh.2023.30","relation":{},"ISSN":["0025-7273","2048-8343"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0025-7273"},{"type":"electronic","value":"2048-8343"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,10]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}