59 
as Well as the modes of applying them. That many of 
these are of a valuable nature, we may readily be assured 
by looking at their Materia Medica, or our own obli- 
occasionally the treatment of general diseases, and the management of 
women and children, when discussing those topics, to which they bear 
relation." 
— " The practical part of the subject of Surgery is preceded by a few gene- 
ral remarks. ' Living bodies are composed,' it is said, ' of the five elements, 
with action or life superadded: they are produced from vapour, vegetation, 
incubation, and parturition, as insects, plants, birds, fishes, reptiles, and 
animals. All the Hindu systems consider vegetable bodies, as endowed 
with life. Of animals, man is the chief, and in proportion to his compli- 
cated structure is his liability to disease. The disorders of the human frame 
are of four kinds; accidental, organic, intellectual, and natural. The 
injuries arising from external causes form the first class; the second com- 
prehends the effects of the vitiated humours, or derangements of the blood, 
bile, wind, and phlegm ; the third class is occasioned by the operation of 
the passions, or the effects on the constitution of rage, fear, sorrow, joy, 
and others ; and the last is referable to the necessary, and innate condition 
of our being, as thirst, hunger, sleep, old age, and decay. " 
— " The instrumental part of medical treatment was, according to the bes' 
authorities, of eight kinds — Chhedana, cutting or scission ; JBhedana, divi- 
sion or excision ; Lek'hana, which means drawing lines, appears to be 
applied to scarification and inoculation ; Vi/ad/iana, puncturing ; Eshyam, 
probing, or sounding ; Aharya, extraction of solid bodies ; Visravuna, 
extraction of fluids, including venesection ; and Sevana, or sewing : and the 
mechanical means, by which these operations were performed, seem to 
have been sufficiently numerous. Of these, the principal are the following : 
" Yantras, properly machines, in the present case instruments ; but to 
distinguish them from the next class, to which that title more particularly 
applies, we may call them implements; Sastras, weapons, or instruments ; 
Kshara, alkaline solutions, or caustics; Agni, fire, the actual cautery; 
Salaka, pins, or tents ; Sringa, horns, the horns of animals open at the 
extremities, and, as well as Alabu or gourds, used as our cupping glasses ; 
the removal of the atmospheric pressure through the first being effected by 
suction, and in the second byrarifying the air by the application of a lamp. 
The next subsidiary means are Jalaulm, or leeches. 
" Besides these, we have thread, leaves, bandages, pledgets, heated 
metallic plates for erubescents, and a variety of astringent or emollient 
applications." 
— The detailed descriptions of the very numerous Hindu instruments 
not being very minute or precise, Professor Wilson says, we can only 
conjecture what they may have been, from a consideration of the purport 
of 
