lii 
INTRODUCTION. 
plants. In Sushruta are recorded the properties and uses of some 
700 of them ; but all of these were not iudigenous to India. 
Some foreign drugs were imported into this country. In ancient 
times there was a trade in drugs between the Hindoos and other 
nations. Liquorice, which does not grow in this country, was ex- 
tensively used in Hindoo Medicine. It grows in Asia Minor 
and Central Asia, and was brought to this country by the no- 
madic? tribes of Central Asia. We find mention of it in Charaka 
and Sushruta. The majority, however, of the medicinal plants 
in these works were indigenous to this country. Their pro- 
perties were known by empirical means. Information regarding 
them was gathered from hunters and shepherds. For this purpose, 
physicians were enjoined to penetrate forests and climb moun- 
tains. 
The works of Charaka and Sushruta appear to have been 
composed in the pre-Buddhist period. The rise of Buddhism 
gave an impetus to the study of medicine in ancient India. 
The edicts of Asoka provided the establishment of hospitals at 
all principal towns and cities of India for the sick and the 
wounded. The Buddhist missionaries penetrating the dreary 
wilderness of Siberia and Central Asia preaching the tenets 
of benevolence and humanity to the savage tribes, also attended 
to treating the sick aud the wounded. They were in one 
sense medical missionaries. The teachings of the Hindoo system 
of medicine were also spread to the countries which adopted 
Buddhism. The Buddhist missionaries brought with them 
drugs of other nations to India, and thus enriched the materia 
medica of Hindoo physicians. 
The Greek Invasion was not without influence on the medical 
practice of ancient India. The savants who accompanied the 
army of Alexander learnt much of the metaphysical, philosophi- 
cal, and medical systems from the Hindoos. The successors 
of Alexander brought Greece and India into closer contact. 
Commerce was established between the two countries. It was 
thus that a large number of drugs of Central Asia and Asia 
Minor found their way to India. Greek physicians also came 
to know several medicinal plants of this country. As the Greeks 
