The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6.81

c6.81

¹ Dr. Liétard in his "Le médecin Caraka", in *Bull. de l'Acad. de médecine*, session of 11 May 1897, p. 3 of the reprint, thought that the operation referred to was the extraction of a still-born child with its feet downwards and that Caraka considered as normal only a delivery with the head downwards, thus following the doctrine of Hippocrates (which could have easily reached him in N. W. India where ruled Kaniṣka) and ignored at that time the more advanced doctrine of Soranus of Ephesus (beginning of the IInd century). But there is nothing in the text which leads one to believe that the child was coming out with feet first or, and that is more important, that Caraka considered a delivery as abnormal if it was not with the head first. It was a case of dystocia and Caraka put his hand in the womb, brought out the child from its envelope, succeeded in extracting it and gave as prognostic the recurrence of the same trouble in case of a new delivery. These vague indications are an honour to his obstetrical cleverness, but they do not reveal anything concerning his theories. Similarly it was not necessary to know the teachings of Hippocrates for knowing that in a case of delivery, the normal presentation is that of the head first.