Surgery In Ancient India
Santha
The surgical operations are performed on what are considered auspicious days. The patient is made to sit or stand with his face to the east, the surgeon before him with his face to the west. The surgeon should be cautious that no vital part, artery, vein, joint, or bone is carelessly injured in the course of the operation, and that the instrument does not go deeper than the requirements of the case actually demand. In serious surgical operations, and in diseases of a painful nature, the patient was made insensible by the administration of anesthetics.
In cases of children, or of patients having a dread of the knife, or where the proper instruments cannot be procured, bamboo, crystal, glass, Kurvinda (a kind of stone), leeches, fire, caustics, nail, Kareera (Capparis aphylla), Shefali (Vitex Negundo), hair and finger may be made use of. They are called Anushastras or substitutes. Sharp pieces of bamboo bark or pointed crystal, glass, or Kurvinda may be employed as incisive instruments. The nail may be used in extracting a solid body, leeches in extracting blood, and hair, finger or vegetable sprout for probing. Caustics are used in opening abscesses, and fire (live charcoal) is applied to snake-bites and to wounds that are intensely painful.
Thus, there are three modes adopted by the Hindus for treating surgical cases — by cutting instruments, by caustics, and by actual cautery. In the opinion of Sushruta, caustic is better than the knife, and cautery better than either. In order to acquire dexterity in surgery, the preceptors made their pupils practice different operations on various substances.
The art of Surgery gradually declined in India owing to a variety of causes, the chief among them being the aversion of the Brahmanas, who had the monopoly of teaching the various sciences, to animal food and to the sacrificial offerings which were too common in the pre-buddhist period. This aversion made them shrink from touching the carcasses necessary for anatomical demonstrations. They also shrank from coming in contact with blood, pus, and other matter, which cannot be avoided in performing surgical operations. Surgery being neglected by the priestly caste, passed into the hands of the lower classes, whose practice was purely empirical. Even these people, for want of encouragement, allowed it to decline, until, as Mr Elphinstone rightly remarks, bleeding was left to the barber, bone- setting to the herdsman, and the application of blisters to every man.