Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t1.10

c7.s3.t1.10

4. Ātreya-Charaka obtained his total of fifteen bones by treating the cervical column somewhat similarly to the vertebral column (§ 59). He gave two transverse processes to each vertebra, counting them as separate bones, and looked upon the bodies of the vertebrae as constituting together a single columnar bone. He thus had twice seven transverse processes, or fourteen bones, plus one columnar body, or a total of fifteen bones. That this was really Ātreya's procedure is shown by a statement of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, which is evidently based on Ātreya's theory of the cervical bones, and which says (§ 42, cl. 3) of the neck-bones, ‘Fourteen are the transverse processes, and their strength (or strong bone) is the fifteenth; hence by means of them, though they are very small, man can bear a heavy load.’ At the same time, Ātreya's procedure shows that his knowledge of the structure of the cervical bones was not so intimate as that of Suśruta; for there is no single central columnar bone in the neck, and the transverse processes of the vertebrae are far less prominent in the neck than in the back¹ (Fig. 18).