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

which he b/'ought a niyid stored with luminous analogies from the lower animals. It was he who first classified all ♦.surgical operations into five differe'nt kinds, and grouped them under heads such as Aharya (extractions of solid bodies), Bhedya (excising), Chhedya (incising), Eshya (probing), Lekhya (scarifying), Sivya (suturing), Vedhya (puncturing) and Visravaniya (evacuating fluids). The surgery of Sushruta recognises a hundred and twenty-five different instruments, constructed after the shape of beasts and birds, and authorises the surgeon to devise new instruments according to the exigencies of each case. The qualifications and equipments of a surgeon are practically the sam*^ as are recommended at the present time. A light refreshment is enjoined to be given to the patient before a surgical operation, while abdominal operations, and operations m the mouth are advised to be performed while the patient is fasting. Sushruta enjoins the sick room to be fumigated with the vapours of white mustard, bdellium, Nimva ' leaves, and resinous gums of Shala trees, etc., which foreshadows the antiseptic ^bacilli) theory of modern times. The number of surgical implements described in the Samhita is decidedly small in comparison with the almost inexhaustible resources of western surgery, and one may be naturally led to suspect the au' henticity of the glorious achievements claimed to have been performed by the surgeons of yore ; but then their kno vledge of the properties and virtues of drugs were so great that cases, which are reckoned as surgical nowadays, were cured with the help of medicines internally^pplied. "Surgery," says Tantram, is mutilation not doctoring (i). It should only be employed when the

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].\TKOI)lf?TIO.\,, xvii 2alTected vital energy is not strcnig enough to al^lie effect the cure that the surgeon is justified to handle his kniYe. We find in the Samhita that ophthalmic, obstetric and other operations were performed with the utmost skill and caution. '

Plastic and Rhinoplastic Operations :- Doctor Hirschberg of Berlin ^ys — "the whole plastic surgery in Europe took a new flight when these cunning devices of Indian workmen became known to us." The transplanting of sensible skin-flaps is also an entirely. Indian method (Sushruta, Sutrasthanam, Ch. XV'I). It is Sushruta who first successfully demonstrated tlie feasibility of mending a dipt earlobe with a patch of sensible skin-flap scraped from the neck or the adjoining part.

To Sushruta is attributed the glory of discovering the art of cataract-crouching which was unknown to the sur- ' geons of ancient Greece and Egypt. Limbs were amputated, abdominal sections were performed, fractures were set, dislocations, hernia and ruptures were reduced, hcemorrhoids rind fistula were removed, and we take pride in saying that the methods recommended in the Sushruta Samhita sometimes prove more successful than those adopted by the surgeons of modern Europe, as we shall have occasion to observe later on. In tho case where the intestines are injured, Sushruta advises that "the protruded part should be gently replaced by following with the fingevP A surgeon should enlarge the wound in it, if necessary, by means of a knife.

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Mahanilatanlram, Patola X. \'~.. 72-74.

B. See the Article on "Ileredily and some of its Surgical Aspects," By F. C. Til/ell, m. d. The ^fediL»al Advance Vd. LXIV. June iqo6. Page 357.

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