Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t4.8

c7.s2.t4.8

counted separately as constituents of the pelvis (§ 60). There remain, therefore, only the twelve thoracic and five lumbar vertebrae, altogether seventeen, or, if we include the sacral and anal bones, nineteen bones to be accounted for. Against these seventeen or nineteen bones Suśruta counts thirty, and Charaka forty-five. In order to appreciate these large numbers correctly, we must remember the peculiar practice of the Indian anatomists to count ‘processes’ as separate bones (§ 44, cl. 1). Each vertebra (Fig. 19) consists of a ‘body’ and an ‘arch’, the latter being constituted of three particularly prominent ‘processes’, viz. the two transverse processes and the spinous process. Charaka counts these four parts, that is, the body and the three processes of the arch, as separate bones. On this point, Suśruta differs from Charaka; and it constitutes one of the two cardinal points of difference between the two systems (for the other, see §§ 65, 66). In the view of Suśruta, with his more thorough application of the principle of homology (§ 28, cl. 2), the body and spinous process, both of which lie in the median line of the body, constitute but a single bone, while the two transverse processes, being homologous on the right and left sides of the body, are separate bones. Accordingly, while Charaka counts four, Suśruta counts only three bones to each vertebra. Moreover, with regard to the thoracic vertebrae, another point must be remembered Their transverse processes were reckoned by the Indian anatomists along with the ribs as their *sthālaka*, or sockets, and have been already disposed of in the preceding paragraph. It is only the body and spinous process of the thoracic vertebrae which are counted by them as ‘bones belonging to the back’ (*pṛṣṭha-gat-āsthi*).