Formalised healthcare in India, through the agencies of the state, grew from the imperative need to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases. As Sujatha Rao has point­ed out, the British administration had no particular interest in establishing health­care but

(u)nacceptably high death rates of over 69 per 1,000 and the debilitating impact of malaria, cholera, typhoid and venereal diseases on the troops did, however, stir them into intervening in the area of public health. (Rao 2017: 8)

Public health in the field, family medicine-based practice and hospital care came to be the three broad strands of healthcare in its totality.