Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t9: § 71. The Ears
Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t9
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§ 71. The Ears
c7.s3.t9.1
1. *Karṇa*, ear. The organ denoted by this term is included among the bones in the systems of Suśruta (§ 27) and Vāgbhaṭa I (§ 37). The system of Ātreya, in all three presentations, by Charaka (§ 4), Bheḍa (§ 12), and the Non-medical Version (§§ 16, 22), does not include it, probably for the same reason as caused the exclusion of the eyeballs (§ 70).
c7.s3.t9.2
FIG. 33. PINNA OF THE RIGHT EAR. Showing—H. Helix. A. Antihelix. C. Concha.
c7.s3.t9.3
2. Suśruta, who includes the ears among the bones of the skeleton, was doubtless referring to the external ear, the auricle or pinna (Fig. 33), which is ‘composed almost entirely of yellow fibro-cartilage’.² In his class-list of the bones (§ 30) he explicitly enumerates the ear (*karṇa*) as an organ made of tender bone (*taruṇa*), that is, of cartilage. The other two portions of the ear, the middle or tympanum which contains the three auditory ossicles, and the internal or labyrinth, both lying in the interior of the skull, appear, for that reason, to have escaped the notice of the early Indian anatomists.
c7.s3.t9.4
² Dr. Gerrish’s *Textbook of Anatomy*, 2nd ed., pp. 52, 696.