An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)

The physician, the patient, the medicine, and the attendants (nurses are the four essential factors of a course of medical treatment. Even a dangerous disease is readily cured, or it may be expected to run a speedy course in the event of the preceding four factors being respectively found to be (qualified, self-controlled, genuine and intelligently watchful .

In the absence of a qualified physician the three remaining factors of treatment will prove abortive like a religious sacrifice performed with the help of an Udgatri,* a Hotri,t and a Brahmana, in the absence of an Adhvaryam.t A qualified physician is alone capable ofreheving the pain of many a suffering patient, just as

"' Udgdtri ; —One of the four piiucipal priests al a sacrifice, who chants llie hymns of the Sdma Veda.

t Hotri — A priest, who recites the (Riks) pr.iyers of the Rik \'eda at a religious sacrifice.

t Adhvaryyu — A priest of the ^'ayur \'eda, whose duly is to cast the sacrificial beast into the fire.

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3o6 THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [ Chap, xxxiv.

only a helmsman is capable of taking his boat across a river even without the help <ind co-operation of a single oarsman.

Qualities of a physician :— A physician, who is well versed in the science of medicine and has attended to the demonstrations of surgery and medicine, and who himself practises the healing art, and is clean, courageous, light-handed, fully equipped with supplies of medicine, surgical instruments and appliances, and who is intelligent, well read, and is a man of ready resources, and one commands a decent practice, and is further endowed with all moral virtues, is alone fit to be called a physician.

Patient : — The patient, who believes in a kind and all-merciful Providence, and possesses an unshakable fortitude and strong vital energy, and who is laid up with a curable form of disease, and is not greedy, and who further commands all the necessary articles at his disposal, and firmly adheres to the advice of his physician, is a patient of the proper or commendable type.

lYIedicine : — The proper; medicine is that which consists of drugs grown in countries most congenial to their growth, collected under the auspices of proper lunar phases and asterisms, and compounded in proper measures and proportions, and which is pleasing (exhilarating to the mind and has the property of

Chap. XXXIV.] SUTRASTHA'NAM.

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subduing the deranged bodily humours without creating any discomfort to the patient, and which is harmless eveil in an overdose, and is judiciously administered at the opportune moment.

Nurse : — That person alone is fit to nurse or to attend the bedside of a patient, who is cool-headed and pleasant in his demeanour, does not speak ill of any body, is strong and attentive to the requirements of the sick, and strictly and indefatigably follows the instructions of the physician.

Thus ends the ihirly-fourth Chapter of the SiitrasthSnam in the Sushruia Samhit^, which treats of preserving the life of a king whose soldiers are on march.

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CHAPTER XXXV

Now we shall discourse on the Chapter which deals with clinical observations (A'turopakramaniyamadhyaryam).

A physician should first observe the vital condition (Ayu) of the patient before commencing the medical treatment. After that, the nature of the disease, the country and season of the year in which it has made its appearance, as well as the state of digestion, age, body, strength, disposition, habit, previous medicine, natural temperament and the power of endurance of the patient, etc. should be observed and carefully examined.

Characteristic features of a long lived man : — Men, the dimensions of whose hands, legs, sides, back, nipples of the breast, teeth, face, shoulders and forehead exceed the average, as well as those whose eyes, arms, phalanges and fingers are longer than the ordinary ones should be regarded as going to live long. Those who have broad chests, broad eye-brows with broader spaces intervening between the muscles of the breasts, and who take in deeper inspirations of breath, will be long lived. Those whose necks, thighs, and generative organs are shorter than those of the average type, or those whose voices and umbilical cavities -are deep, and whose breasts are unraised an d thick-set, and external ears broad, fleshy and haiiy.

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with the occipital region fully developed and protruded, will enjoy a longer span of' life. Men, on whose bodies sandal paste and similar preparations begin to dry up from the head downward, while those applied over the chest become absorbed later, should be looked upon as persons endowed with an uncommonly longer duration of life.