Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c26.2.3

c26.2.3

Next, Jīvaka cured the Emperor Bimbisāra of his fistula by one anointing and was then appointed as the royal physician and the physician of the Buddha and his Saṁgha. The next important case he treated was that of a Seṭṭhi at Rājagaha who had been suffering for seven years from a head disease. Jīvaka performed a surgical operation to cure him: he "tied him fast to his bed, cut through the skin of the head, drew apart the flesh on each side of the incision, pulled two worms out of the wound, then closed up the sides of the wound, stitched up the skin on the head, and anointed it with salve". The next important call came from Benares to cure a Seṭṭhi's son who, by a gymnastic feat, got an entanglement of his intestines, for which "he could not digest anything, nor could he ease himself in the regular way, and looked discoloured with the veins standing out upon his skin". Jīvaka performed another of his successful and difficult surgical operations. He "cut through the skin of the belly, drew the twisted intestines out, and showed them to his wife". He then "disentangled the twisted intestines, put them back into their right position, stitched the skin together, and anointed it with salve". Before long the patient was cured and his father gave the surgeon 16,000 *Kāhāpaṇas*. The next call came from distant Ujjenī whose King Pajjota, suffering from jaundice, asked the Emperor Bimbisāra for the services of his physician.