The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c9.115

c9.115

The wind which could be considered as pertaining to anatomy in Indian thought, must be, first of all, studied with regard to its physiological action. The phlegm, the watery element of the organism, is not named in the Vedic Saṃhitās. One of the terms designating it in the classical text is balāsa and figures in the Veda but only as the name of a disease and in that capacity we have studied it (pp. 117 ff). It appears, therefore, that to the Vedic Saṃhitās only a part, though an important one, of the anatomical elements having an essential rôle in medicine, is known. The study of the data of Physiology will lead us to an analogous conclusion.