Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c18: XII. Medicine
Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c18
- Language
- English
XII. Medicine
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SUPERSTITIONS die hard. The progress of rationalism is slow. Hippocrates and Galen held a knowledge of astronomy or rather astrology to be essential to physicians. In Europe, even so late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, diseases were regarded as punishments of God, and the intervention of priests was requisitioned where one should call on a physician or a surgeon.⁴⁰ Thus, when after the return of Columbus's party from the newly discovered America to the Old World, venereal diseases created havoc in every country in Europe, people used to offer masses and prayers and alms to assuage the wrath of God. From the Popes and Cardinals down to the soldiers and traders, every rank of the society was infected by the disease. It was, therefore, considered to be a visitation from heaven to punish the licentious and rectify the universal ribaldry of the times.
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In fact, the pseudo-science of Galen (second century A.D.) continued long to be an incubus upon medical theory and practice in Europe. Absurd formulæ held the ground in the Christian pharmacopœas of continental Europe down to comparatively modern times. And the age of talismans, amulets, the fetish of royal touch, etc., is yet fresh in human memory. Really scientific medicine is very recent.²⁰
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It is in this perspective of the history of medicine that Hindu contributions to its science and art have to be read. Hindu achievements in this field as in others have not only an "historical" importance, but have some "absolute" value also. Besides, from the standpoint of comparative chronology, Hindu medicine has been ahead of the European and has been of service in its growth and development.
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Two great names in Hindu medicine are Charaka (*c* sixth to fourth century B.C. ?), the physician, and Sushruta (early Christian era), the surgeon. They were not the founders of their respective sciences, but the premier organizers of the cumulative experience of previous centuries. In observation lay their great strength, the "natural history of disease" was their special study. Both these schools were in existence about 500 B.C. according to Hoernle. By the first and second centuries A.D. surgery was a well developed art. Many instruments were devised, of which 127 are mentioned. The materia medica grew from age to age with the introduction of new drugs (vegetable, animal and mineral), of which the therapeutic effects were tested by the "experiments" of researchers.
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(1) The Hindus have had hospitals and dispensaries since at least the third century B.C. Asoka the Great was an educator and propagandist. Through his Rock Inscriptions he popularized, among other things, some of the more common medical recipes for the treatment of both men and animals. (The first Christian hospital was built in the fourth century A.D. under Constantine.)
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(2) The smoking of datura leaves in asthma, treatment of paralysis and dyspepsia by nux vomica, use of croton tiglium, etc., are modern in Europe, but have come down in India since very old times.⁵¹
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(3) The Hindus were the first in the world to advocate the "internal" use of mercury. Pliny knew only of its external use (first century A.D.). By the sixth century it was well established among Hindu practioners as an aphrodisiac and tonic. It is mentioned by Varaha-mihira along with iron (587).⁴⁴
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(4) The Greeks and Romans used metallic substances for external application. The Saracens are usually credited with their internal administration for the first time in the history of medicine. According to LeClerc, the first physicians in Europe, who used mercury, lived in the fifteenth century, and were induced to do so from reading the works of Mesue of Damascus (750).
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But in this as in other matters the Hindus anticipated the Saracens, and, in fact, taught them. As Royle observes, the earliest of the Saracens had access to the writings of Charaka and Sushruta, who had given directions for the internal use of numerous metallic substances.
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(5) In the prescriptions of Dr. Vagbhata mineral and natural salts had a conspicuous place. His book was translated into Arabic in the eighth century.
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(6) From the sixth century on, every Hindu treatise on materia medica has more or less recommended metallic preparations for internal use. It was only after Paracelsus at the end of the sixteenth century that these had a recognized place in European science.⁴⁴
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Hindu medicine has influenced the medical systems of other peoples of the world.⁵¹ The work of Indian physicians and pharmacologists was known in ancient Greece and Rome. The materia medica of the Hindus has influenced mediæval European practice also through the Saracens.
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(1) Hippocrates (450 B.C.), the "father of medicine," was familiar with Hindu drugs. Thus he mentions pepper, cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, cassia, etc. Theophrastus (350 B.C.) mentions ficus indica and others among medicinal plants. Dioscorides (first century A.D.), the most celebrated compiler of Greek materia medica, mentions valeriana hardwickii, calamus aromaticus, etc. Ætius (fifth century) mentions collyrium indiarum, santalum, and other characteristic Hindu medicaments. Similarly Paulus Ægineta (seventh century) prescribes the internal use of steel, cloves, rhubarb, trypherum, etc. Pliny, the Roman contemporary of Dioscorides, had also mentioned Indian medicinal plants and drugs.
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The preparations of the Hindu pharmaceutical laboratories were thus in use in Greece as well as in the Hellenistic and Græco-Roman world. The Hindu inventions were bodily incorporated in the European systems. The Indian names, e.g., hardwickii, trypherum, etc., were retained; also, the original Hindu uses of the drugs. And all this before the age of Saracen intermediaries.⁵¹
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(2) Hindu physicians were superintendents of Saracen hospitals at Bagdad. The introduction of Indian drugs among Moslems has been acknowledged by their own medical men.
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Serapion, the earliest Saracen author of materia medica (eighth century), mentions the Hindu Charaka. So also his followers, Rhazes and Avicenna.⁷⁸
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The Saracen physicians were surprised at the boldness with which Hindu practitioners prescribed the internal use of powerful metallic drugs. "Taleef Shareef" (Playfair's translation) is quoted by Udoychand Dutt to indicate the Moslem admiration of the Hindu practice:
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"White oxide of arsenic: The Hindu physicians find these drugs more effectual, . . . but I usually confine them to external application.
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"Mercury: It is very generally used throughout India, . . . it is a dangerous drug.
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"Iron: It is commonly used by physicians in India, but my advice is to have as little to do with it as possible.”
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(3) The Chinese scholar-tourists studied Hindu medicine.∗ Itsing “made a successful study” of the subject while in India (671–95), though it was not his special mission.⁶⁴
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∗ Nine *Polomen* (i.e., Brahman, or Hindu) books on medicine are mentioned in the bibliographical section (Book XXXIV) of the “Sui Shoo” (A.D. 589–618). Some of these books are complete in twenty-five volumes, and contain the “recipes of many masters.” References to the “Sui Shoo” are due to the investigations of Mr. T. Y. Leo, late of the Chinese Legation of Washington, D. C.
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(4) The later Greek physicians, e.g., Actuarius (twelfth century), Myrepsus, etc., were influenced by Saracen doctors.²⁹ They used Hindu medicaments also. Thus like the pre-Saracen Paulus, Actuarius mentioned *tri-phala* or “three myrobalans.” This traditional Hindu drug has a place in his materia medica under the name of “tryphera parva.”
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(5) The Persian (post-Caliphate) doctors of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, also, made use of the original Sanskrit treatises as well as of the previous Arabic translations. Meer Mohammed Moomin has acknowledged his indebtedness to Hindu works in his “Materia Medica.”⁵¹