English
The Ramayana tells us that a restorative called Sanjivani was given to bring the patient back to consciousness after a wound was in¬ flicted on the battlefield. It was also employed after an operation such as trephining in which an anaesthetic had been used, to counteract its after¬ effects. The Vedic physicians possessed a considerable knowledge of the process of digestion, the properties and func¬ tions of fat, muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilages, etc. The three humours of the body were considered to be the fundamental principles which main¬ tained a healthy equilibrium of the organism. They are vayu, nerve force; pitta, metabolism and heat pro¬ duction; and kapha, which presides over heat regulation, and mucous and glandular secretions. The Mahabha- rata also describes the principle of the [21] THE ANTIQUITY OF circulation of the blood: “The ducts leading from the heart go up and down and in transverse directions; they transport the best juices of the food.” 50 These glimpses at the "period of the epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata —give us an idea of the state of pro¬ ficiency surger y an d medicine achieved in so early an age. In the epic period, we come across , two celebrated medical men— Charaka : and Susrn ta —whose books were con- . sidered as standard works on Hindu 1 medicine for many, many centuries, and were revised and re-edited by many successive Indian doctors down to the time of Bhava Misra— a.d. 1550—who marks the last revival of Aryan Vedic literature. In the intervening centuries, so many medical men were called after them that their names were confused and mistaken for the original Charaka and Susruta. Charaka was a great physician and philosopher, and a man of high culture and intellect. His book on medicine [22] HINDU MEDICINE is voluminous, is divided into eight parts, and contains 120 chapters. ■ He deals with various diseases of the heart, chest, abdomen, genital organs, and lower extremities; their causes, symp¬ toms, and treatment. He devotes chapters to diet, drugs, antidotes for poisons, medical instruments and ap¬ pliances. He mentions the use of syringes, emetics, purgatives, and ene¬ mas. He gives elaborate instruction for the erection and furnishing of a hospital for the rich, for the construc- ‘ tion and provision of a lying-in room and the child’s room, where he'advises the bedding, coverings, and sheets should be purified by steam and by fumigation. So minute are his instruc¬ tions on equipment in’ the child’s room that he orders that a variety of toys to please the child should be at hand, which should be coloured,light, musical, and beautiful, and not be sharp-pointed." And withal he is.so scientific that his Logic of Therapeutics is taken as “the most signal example of scientific method [23] D THE ANTIQUITY OF worked out with systematic careful¬ ness .” 27 Susruta was the son of Visvamitra, a contemporary of Rama. He was a great surgeon. Though his work is mainly devoted to surgery, it also includes medicine, pathology, anatomy, midwifery, biology, ophthalmology, etc. His book was an attempt to arrange systematically the surgical experiences of the older surgeons, and to collect the scattered facts on medicine from the Vedic literature. If Charaka is superior to Susruta in the accuracy of description, classification of diseases, and the general plan of treatment, Susruta excels him in anatomical descriptions and in the treatment of surgical diseases. He classifies all surgical operations into five different lands, and groups them under: ex¬ tractions of solid bodies, excising, in¬ cising, probing, scarifying, suturing, puncturing, and evacuating fluids. He enumerates iox varieties of blunt in¬ struments and twenty different kinds [24] ; HINDU MEDICINE of sharp instruments, which should have an edge so fine as to divide the hairs on the skin. They are chiefly made of iron, and include scalpels, lancets, saws, scissors, needles, hooks, probes, directors, sounds, forceps, tro¬ cars, catheters, syringes, bougies, and a rectal and vaginal speculum. Most of the modern surgical instruments are only slight modifications of those used by the ancient Hindu surgeons. The surgeon, before commencing an opera¬ tion, is enjoined to equip himself with all the necessary things, such as the instruments, salts, bandages, honey, oil, water, etc. He should have prac¬ tical experience of his art, and should execute his work with a light hand, and have by his side steady and strong assistants. ' The patient should be allowed to take light food before an operation, while abdominal operations and operations in the mouth or about the anus should be performed when the patient is fasting. The sick - room should be fumigated with the vapours THE ANTIQUITY OF of resinous gums, etc., and incense should be burnt in the operation room, and afterwards the wound sterilised by fumigation—all of which foreshadow the antiseptic theory of the present day. To Susruta is attributed the discovery of cataract-crouching, which was en¬ tirely unknown to the Greeks, the Egyptians, or any other nation. It was he who first successfully demonstrated the feasibility of mending a tom ear¬ lobe- with a skin flap taken from the neck or adjoining part, and after him Indian surgeons became experts in rhinoplastic operations. Also limbs were amputated, abdominal sections were performed, fractures and dislo¬ cations set, hernia and ruptures were reduced, haemorrhoids and fistula were removed with a success that will come as a surprise to European surgeons. Certain medicinal plasters were ap¬ plied to localise the shafts of arrows embedded in the wounded limbs of soldiers, and the exact location ascer¬ tained from the inflammation caused [26] HINDU MEDICINE by such an application with a precision that reminds one of Rontgen rays. ' The use of anaesthetics was not unknown to the Hindus. Both Cha- raka and Susruta mention the use of medicinal wines to produce insensi¬ bility to pain. Susruta distinctly lays down that "wine should be used before operation to produce insen¬ sibility to pain." The Hindus also used the fumes of burning Indian hemp (Cannabis indica) as an anaesthetic at a period of great antiquity, and later they also employed other drugs for the same purpose. In a.d. 927, a cranial, .operation was performed on King Blio'ja" of Dhar by two brother surgeons, who made the King insen¬ sible by a drug called Samohi ni, trephined the skull, removed a growth from the brain, closed the opening, and stitched the wound. Another drug (Sanjivani) was given to restore con¬ sciousness after the operation. 28 It is in practical midwifery that one becomes impressed with the skill and THE ANTIQUITY OF ability of Susruta. The different turn¬ ing, flexing, and gliding movements, the application of forceps in cases of difficult labour, and other obstetric operations involving the destruction and mutilation of the foetus, such as craniotomy, were first systematically described by Susruta (in Susruta Sam- hita) many centuries before Christ. After delivery, Susruta says: “Wash with hot water." There was no sepsis in Susruta's labour rooms because he took care to use clean hands and boiled water—thus anticipating aseptic surgery of modem times. His ad¬ vocacy of Caesarean section in hope¬ less cases of obstruction, his directions regarding the management of the puerperal state, lactation, the rear¬ ing of the child, the choice of a wet- nurse, etc., are practically the same as may be found in any modem book. He was the first to advocate dissection of dead bodies as indis¬ pensable for a successful surgeon. As Dr. Wise observes: “The Hindus were HINDU MEDICINE the first scientific cultivators of the most important and essential of all the departments of medical knowledge, practical anatomy.” To acquire effi¬ ciency in the art of surgery, the Hindu teachers made their pupils practise different operations on various sub¬ stances. For instance, incision was practised on Pushpaphala (Cucurbit a maxima), evacuating on leather bags full of water and on the urinary bladders of dead animals, scarification on the hides of animals, venesection on the vessels of dead animals and on the stalks of the water-lily. Ligaturing . and bandaging were practised on dummies, suturing on pieces of cloth, skin, or hide, application of caustics and the actual cautery on pieces of flesh, and catheterisation on unbaked earthen vessels filled with water. 20 In chemistry, Susruta describes the methods of preparing oxides, sulphates, and chlorides of six metals—tin, iron, lead, copper, silver, and gold. In the preparation of caustic alkalies, his [ 29 ] THE ANTIQUITY OF direction that the strong lye is to be “ preserved in an iron vessel "is a proof, as Sir P. C. Ray says, of the high degree of perfection in scientific phar¬ macy achieved by the Hindus at such an early age. 30 In medicine, the method of direct auscultation was probably known to Susruta, as he say^: "By the ear can be heard the sounds of air bubbling in the phlegm in the wind passages ’ ’— which seems to refer to the crepitations or rales heard in pneumomaTand other lung diseasesT Space will not allow us to give even an outline of his writings on diet, hygiene, public health, materia medica, operations on the eye, etc. Truly he had an encyclopedic mind. He and Charaka represented the state of Hindu medicine of their age. They laid a strong foundation of medicine, surgery, therapeutics, etc.