The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c9.109

c9.109

There have, however, been claims to identify the *ojas* as it is described by Suśruta with albumin. Kunja Lal Bhishagratna has defended this theory⁶ on the ground that albumin is precisely an essential element of the constitution of tissues and that *Caraka-saṃhitā* shows the presence of *ojas* in the urine in case of the disease of *madhumeha*. But it is clear that *madhumeha* is the disease where urine has sugar, the diabetes. The loss of vigour in this disease, where an unusual element appears in the urine and where diuresis is extremely increased, could easily lead to the supposition that *ojas* escaped in the form of this element. But it does not follow that the doctors had discovered albumin or glycogen; what is true is only that they have recognised the presence of an element which they supposed to be *ojas* and which we study in chemistry under the name of glucose. But Kunja Lal confuses glucose with glycogen and supposes a correlation of the latter with albumin and thereby links albumin and *ojas*. He thus brings to Āyurveda the honour of the discovery of albumin without noticing that it implies the attribution of an absurd theory, whereby albumin enters the composition of the tissues of the foetus only in the eighth month of gestation.