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The Luso-Indian Stethoscope: A Review

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Shirley Louise Gonsalves’ book The Luso-Indian Stethoscope delves into the history of having Luso-Indians, mainly Christians, play a prominent role as medical professionals in the 19th century in India. The non-fiction book is an academic read, and rightly enough, since the research undertaken for the tome was part of the author’s study as a postgraduate student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Dept of History, University of London. Shirley Gonsalves provides an understanding of how terms such as race, caste, religion, etc may have held different meanings at various points of time and the effect these differences had on the willingness of people to identify themselves or not with a particular identity group. Broadly categorised, Luso-Indians were indigenous people from the Konkan region whose ancestors had been ruled by the Portuguese and converted to Catholicism. The book talks about clearer definitions for terms such as caste, race, religion, and so on being introduced