Healers, doctors and the search for a middle ground: examining the perceptions of traditional Malay medicine in Singapore during the 1950s and 1960s

Abstract

This thesis explores the perceptions of traditional Malay medicine in Singapore during the 1950s. Through a cultural analysis of films and interviews with practitioners, clients, and eyewitnesses. It argues that the increasing presence of biomedicine in the lives of the Malay community had shaped the way people perceived traditional Malay medicine in that the biomedical aspect of health was eventually incorporated into their understanding of traditional Malay medicine. Even though many of these clients still held onto their own traditional beliefs and practices, public education of biomedicine and efforts to reach out to rural communities with medical treatments had allowed the Malay community to adjust their beliefs to accommodate their understanding of biomedicine. However, by the end of the 1960s, there still lingered a slight ambivalence towards the acceptance of biomedicine into their own lives while most people had gradually begun to accept biomedicine. At the same time, the parameters for traditional Malay medicine continued to remain loosely defined as there were disagreements as to whether certain aspects of traditional Malay medicine aligned to their own beliefs in Islam.