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containing 120 chapters in all.* This is followed by a line to the 

 effect, that in the Uttara-tantra the remainder of the subject will 

 he described. This last line, however, is evidently an interpola- 

 tion, for if the original writer of the work had divided his book 

 into six part?, he would not have said that it consisted o£ five 

 parts. Besides the Uttara-tantra has a separate introduction in 

 which the writer says it is compiled from the works of learned 

 sages on the six divisions of KayachikiUd or the treatment of 

 general diseases, and from the work of Videhidhipa on Salakya 

 Sdfetra or diseases of the head, eyes, ears and nose. 



If therefore we leave out of consideration tie Utlara fantra 

 of Susruta, the work resolves itself mainly into a treatise on the 

 principles of medicine as bearing on surgical diseases. It would 

 thus appear, that from a very early age, Hindu medical practition- 

 ers were divided into two classes, namely, Salja chikitsaka or 

 surgeons and Kayachikitsaka or physicians. The surgeons were 

 also called Dhanvantaryia sampradaya after Dhanvantari the 

 reputed teacher of Susruta, or from Dhanvantari the mythological 

 surgeon of the gods. This division existed before the work of 

 Charaka was compiled, for as pointed out by Kaviraja Brajendra- 

 kumar Sen Gupta, Charaka, like our modern physicians, refers his 

 readers to surgeons when surgical aid is necessary, as for example 

 in the passage quoted below, f We may conclude, therefore, that 

 Charaka is the oldest treatise on Medicine and Susruta the oldest 

 treatise on Surgery now extant. . 



These two works, namely, Charaka and Susruta mark the 

 highest phase of development of the Hindu system of Medicine 

 in ancient ti aaes. Their comprehensive ohareater and superior 

 merit probably led, in course of time, to the extinction of the 





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