Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c2.7

c2.7

I am tempted, however, to offer one or two passing observations. No summary of osteological doctrine, such as we find in the writings of Charaka and Suśruta, appears to exist in any of the known works of the earlier Greek medical schools. If this is the case—and I am writing under correction—it greatly adds to the difficulty of making any satisfactory comparison. There exists, however, a somewhat similar osteological summary in the Talmud (see the Note, p. viii); and as the Talmudic anatomy is admittedly based on the anatomy of the Greeks, the summary in question may perhaps be taken to reflect the contemporary Greek doctrine on the subject. It is ascribed to the first century A.D.; but certain points in it, such as the inclusion of ‘processes’ and cartilages to make up its total of 248 bones, seem to point to its being rather a survival of the system of the Hippokratic school. In any case, however, in its method and details of classification it differs materially from the Indian; and if it may be taken in any way as a representative of Greek doctrine, it is difficult to believe in any connexion of the latter with the Indian. In this connexion a statement of Celsus, who is a fair exponent of the Greek osteology of the first century B.C., may be noted. Referring to the carpus and tarsus, he says that they ‘consist of many minute bones, the number of which is uncertain’, but that they present ‘the appearance of a single, interiorly concave, bone’; and with reference to the fingers and toes, he says that ‘from the five metacarpals the digits take their origin, each consisting of three bones of similar configuration’ (beginning of Book VIII). In the latter numeration of fifteen oints in the hands and feet, Greek osteology agrees with the Talmudic and Indian. As to the carpus and tarsus, the two views of ‘a number of small bones’ and of ‘a single bone’ are also found in the Indian osteological summaries of Suśruta and Charaka respectively; the Talmudic summary implies a reckoning of eight small bones.