FOUNDATIONS OF MEDICINE 



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(compendium), so well known in India to-day, and refers principally 

 to medical matters. 



Surgery, according to Indian mythology, descended from Indra 

 to Dhanvantari, a teacher in the legendary school of Benares. His 

 pupil, Susruta, who appears to have been a contemporary with 

 Agnivesa, wrote a compendium dealing mainly with surgical 

 matters. The medical chapters were added about the second 

 century a.d. by an unknown writer, the result being the vSusruta- 

 Sarhhita as known to-day. Susruta ascribes fevers to bites by 

 mosquitoes, and his remarks on the physician and his patient 

 may be quoted : ' A physician experienced in his art, but deficient 

 in the knowledge of the science of medicine, is condemned by all 

 good men as a quack, and deserves capital punishment at the hands 

 of the King.' Again: 'The patient who may mistrust his own 

 parents, sons, and relatives should repose an implicit faith in his 

 own physician, and put his own life into his hands without the 

 least apprehension of danger; hence a physician should protect his 

 patient as his own begotten child.' 



A third system of medicine was evolved by Vagbhata the Elder, 

 who probably lived in the seventh century a.d., and who was 

 acquainted with the Charaka-Sariihita and the Susruta -Sariihita. 

 His work is called ' Astanga Samgraha,' or the summary of the 

 eight -branched science, because Indian medicine was divided into 

 eight parts — internal medicine, major surgery, minor surgery, 

 demonology, toxicology, tonics, aphrodisiacs, and paedotrophy. 



Madhava wrote a work on pathology (Nidana) somewhere about 

 the seventh century a.d., and Vagbhata the Younger, in the seventh 

 or eighth century, a compendium, Astanga Hrdaya Sarhhita, based 

 upon the Astanga Sariigraha of the Elder Vagbhata. 



The great works are therefore those of Charaka (really of Agnivesa, 

 Charaka, Dridhabala, Vagbhata and Madhava), Susruta, Vagbhata, 

 and Madhava. 



After this comes the period of the commentators: — Bhaskara 

 Bhatta, in the early eleventh century, on Susruta; Charakapandatta, 

 in the late eleventh century, on Charaka; Dallana, in the twelfth 

 century, on Susruta; Arunadatta, about a.d. 1220, on the Younger 

 Vagbhata; Vijaya Rakshita and Srikanthadatta, about a.d. 1240, 

 on the Nidana of Madhava; and Vachaspati, about a.d. 1260, also 

 on Madhava. In the sixteenth century Bhava Misra published a 

 compilation from the older writers, which he called ' Bhava Prakasa ; 

 or. The Manifestation of the Truth.' 



There is no doubt that the Indian doctors were well versed not 

 merely in medicine and surgery, but in the prevention of disease 

 and in operative midwifery. They apparently knew diabetes 

 mellitus, dysentery, phthisis, syphilis, and diseases due to worms, 

 etc. In diagnosis they paid great attention to the examination of 

 the pulse, the temperature of the body, the colour of the skin, the 

 urine, faeces, eye, voice, and the respiratory sounds. They possessed 

 a remarkable symptomatology, and as regards treatment divided 



