Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c14.11

c14.11

Cataract operation¹: "In middle (moderate) temperature the surgeon should himself sit in the morning in a bright place on a bench which is as high as his knee, opposite the patient who is sitting at a lower level, has bathed and eaten and sits fastened (on the ground) (held by a servant sitting behind him-AS). After warming the eye of the patient with the breeze of his mouth, and rubbing it with the thumb and after perceiving the impurity in the pupil (lense), he takes the lancet (*śalākā*) with the forefinger, middle finger and thumb fast in his hand while the patient looks at his own nose and his head is held firm. He inserts it in the natural opening (pupil) on the side, ½ finger far from the black and ¼ finger from the external eye-corner and moves it upwards to and fro. He pierces the left eye with the right hand and / or the right eye with the left. If he has pierced rightly, then there comes a noise and a waterdrop flows out without pain. While encouraging the patient, he moistens the eye with woman's milk and then scratches the eye-apple with the edge of the lancet without causing pain. He then pushes the phlegm in the eye-apple gradually towards the nose where the patient must direct it by drawing up in the nose. Whether the diseased place (doṣa) is firm or moving, he foments the eye from outside. If the patient can now see the objects (shown to him), then the surgeon should pull out the lancet slowly, should place greased cotton on the wound and let the patient lie down with fastened eye."