The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c10.12

c10.12

But, if the fundamental pathological theory of classical medicine had not assumed shape at the time of the redaction of the Rgvedic hymns and even of those of the Atharvaveda or, if at least nothing can prove to us that it had assumed shape, it does not seem to be doubtful that right from the time of the Atharvaveda, elements had, in part, been prepared for its elaboration. We have seen (p. 117) that balāsa designated swellings, the aqueous infiltration of tissues and that it has become a name of the aqueous element of the organism, the śleṣman, “phlegm” or “mucus”. The fire which has a manifest rôle in affections like fever, was accepted as an important element in physiology, because of the equivalence postulated since the Veda between the macrocosm and the microcosm and already the bile had been assimilated with the fire as it is in medical theory.