Charles Miller Leslie (1923-2009) was an Americanmedical anthropologist, who was an avid contributor of published works in his branch ofanthropology. Leslie’s career was influential to the shaping of medical anthropology, as his works have inspired other medical anthropologists to further research and popularize anthropological concepts which includes medical pluralism,social relations of therapy management, the relationship between state and medical systems, and health discourse.[1] Leslie’s main focus within medical anthropology has been the study of Asian medical systems, specificallyAyurvedic,Unani, andChinese medicine.
Following his service in the army, Leslie pursued a degree in the Bachelor of Arts, Master's degree, and finally earning a doctorate degree from theUniversity of Chicago. While inChicago, Leslie met his future wife, Zelda, and wed in 1946.[3] The marriage produced two sons, and a daughter.
With a career spanning over forty years, Leslie had the opportunity to research many fields within anthropology, but found his calling in the sub-field ofmedical anthropology.
Within medical anthropology, Leslie focused most of his time and resources on studying the concept of medical pluralism, and Asian medical systems. Because of Leslie’s deep interest in Asian medical systems, it allowed for him to travel to manyOceanic and Asian countries, which is where most of his research on medical pluralism takes place.
“The structural reasons that medical pluralism is a prominent feature of medical care throughout the world are thatbiomedicine, like Ayurveda and every other therapeutics, fails to help many patients. Every system generates discontent with its limitations and a search for alternative therapies...Ayurveda, biomedicine, and other traditions of medicine provide different rhetorics or responsibility and different meanings of suffering”. -Leslie on medical pluralism from his book Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge[4]
One of Leslie’s most famous works was his book Asian Medical Systems (1976). In Asian Medical Systems, Leslie draws attention to modernizing movements and their effects on lost medical traditions.
In the introduction of Asian Medical Systems, Leslie describes Asian medical systems as “formulated from generic physiological and cosmological concepts”, and “...great medical traditions were relatively independent, they evolved in similar ways. They all became professional branches of scientific learning in the millennium between the fifth century B.C. and the fifth century A.D.”.[5]
Arguably, what can be considered Leslie's greatest accomplishment as an anthropologist, is his work. Which has been credited as the inspiration for work done by other anthropologists in the field, this can be seen no clearer than in the 2002festschrift, New Horizons in Medical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie, written in his honour by peers and former students who have been influenced by his work. This ripple-effect that his work has started can be best seen when comparing current worktraditional and alternative medical systems and Leslie’s.
Leslie, Charles, 1992 Paths to Asian medical knowledge. Interpretations of Illness: Syncretism in Modern Ayurveda. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 177–208.
Lock, Margaret and Mark Nichter, 2002, New Horizons in Medical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie. pp. 297–300.
