The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c13.21

c13.21

Concerning the ‘hot and liquid’ nature of the bile, Plato agrees fully with the old Vedic idea of the igneous nature of bile, an idea inherited by Ayurvedic medicine. He brings in the bile from a liquefaction of extremely old fleshes, getting black under the action of prolonged heating and becoming bitter or acid. The bitter parts plunge themselves in the blood and this results in a green tint. Finally the younger parts of the flesh give the yellow colour along with bitterness (83 a-b). Suśruta cites a verse summarising the Indian ideas concerning the bile: “The bile is bitter, liquid, fetid, black and also yellow, hot and of acrid taste, and when it is burnt, it is acid.”² Some of the notions which agree on both sides, are of little significance. The amertume of the bile is a commonplace and universal fact but the same is not true of the theory saying that the bile, under the influence of heat, becomes acid.