Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t3.8

c7.s2.t3.8

4. Both views are represented in the lists of the ancient Indian anatomists. Suśruta counts sixteen bones; and these sixteen, together with the median bone of the sternum, make up the seventeen bones of the uras or breast, which we find in the genuine form of his list (§ 34). Charaka, on the other hand, counts only fourteen bones (§ 4). The difficulty in his case is that apparently he ignores the existence of the sternum: one expects that he would count fifteen bones. Considering that the sternum is a very prominent bone which even a less experienced anatomist would have no difficulty in feeling under the skin, it is inconceivable that Charaka (or rather Ātreya, whose system Charaka reports) should have failed to recognize it. The probability is that Ātreya merely omitted to distinguish between bone and cartilage, that is, between the hard bone of the sternum and the ‘tender’ bone of the costal cartilages. To him probably the sternum appeared to be merely a continuation of the latter which he considered as meeting in the median line of the breast. He looked upon the front of the thoracic cage as formed by a series of seven long bones, placed horizontally one above the other, and attached to one another in the median line. On the homological principle, he divided this series of bars into two halves, and thus obtained his total of fourteen bones.