Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5.14

c5.14

5. *Suśruta, the Surgeon.* In contrast with Ātreya, the physician, Suśruta was a surgeon. While the former professed general medicine (Āyurveda, or the Science of life), the latter made surgery (Śalya) his special study. Suśruta, likewise, wrote a Compendium (Saṃhitā) of General Medicine (Āyurveda), but, agreeably with his profession, its main concern was with surgical matters. It thus treats of some subjects, such as surgical instruments, which are not noticed at all in the Compendium of Charaka.¹ Moreover, it omits all mention of some diseases in the treatment of which surgery, at that time, did not enter. For this reason, from the point of view of general medicine, Suśruta’s Compendium, of course, had the appearance of incompleteness. Hence after some time (§ 2, cl. 5), an anonymous writer composed a Supplement (Uttara-tantra) which treated of all the subjects unnoticed by Suśruta. Among the latter were even subjects belonging to minor surgery (Śālākya), which circumstance shows that, for example, the surgical treatment of some eye-diseases (as cataract, &c.) was still unknown in the time of Suśruta. At the present day the whole work, inclusive of the Supplement, is known simply as Suśruta’s Compendium (Suśruta Saṃhitā), and in the present dissertation (unless otherwise specified) it will be quoted under that name. In order to distinguish, however, Suśruta the Supplementor, or Suśruta II, from the original Suśruta, the latter is sometimes designated by Indian commentators ‘Suśruta the elder’ (vṛddha Suśruta). For our present purpose it is important to notice that the passages relating to the bones of the human body occur in the original work of Suśruta the elder. At the same time, it is quite possible that the Supplementor, in addition to his proper task, may have subjected the original portion of the compendium to some amount of revision. But from indications in the before-mentioned Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (§ 42), it is not probable that this occurred in the case of the passages in question.