Volume 2

The surgical instruments of the Hindus with a comparative study of the surgical instruments of the Greek, Roman, Arab, and the modern European surgeons / by Girindranāth Mukhopādhyāya.

  • Mukhopādhyāya, Girindranāth.
Date:
1913-1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The surgical instruments of the Hindus with a comparative study of the surgical instruments of the Greek, Roman, Arab, and the modern European surgeons / by Girindranāth Mukhopādhyāya. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the body as of the soul. The example of such a temple we still find in Ta.r^]cp.amrr where many sick people repair to have their maladies cured by dreams, hypnotic suggestions and incubation or temple-sleep. Similar practice was prevalent in Egypt and Greece in olden times. The modern practice of using galvanic rings and abdominal belts is merely an advanced method of indulging in superstitious ideas. 3. The patients always dreaded the surgeon’s knife—especi- ally when the use of a general anaesthetic was unknown. At the same time, the comparative success of poultices, actual and potential cauteries, and other external applications have influenced the lay mind that operations by knife are not always needed.1 The Hindu surgeons themselves believed in similar tenets, for Susruta, the surgeon, remarks, that “of all cutting instruments and their substitutes, caustics (or vege- table alkalies) are the most important, because by means of them, deep and superficial incisions and scarifications may be made, and derangements of the three humours (air, bile and phlegm) may be rectified”; and again he says that “with 1 fesmfa Art wfeT i ^ arerrat II 5TFW f% wartf% mfonfa tpr. i fifi tR VTSTOTR RR ffawrlrfqwr II *rrcRf anqf<? ^ vm ^ fagjfb i ii fg i IRTejaf 3!^T?=ilTf wftffT U II Mahanllatantra, Patola X, vs. 72-74. 2