[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Science, technology and education](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science) › [Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918) › c19 # Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c19: XIII. Surgery Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c19 - **Language:** English ### XIII. Surgery ### [c19.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.2) The ancient Hindu surgeons gave expression to the most modern views about the importance of their science. They declared: ### [c19.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.3) "Surgery is the first and best of the medical sciences, less liable than any other to the fallacies of conjectural and inferential practices, pure in itself, perpetual in its applicability, the worthy produce of Heavens, and certain source of Fame." ### [c19.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.4) These ideas were prevalent among the medical practitioners during the first centuries of the Christian era, when the investigations of the Sushruta-cycle were being organized into a system. ### [c19.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.5) Another very remarkably modern idea of these surgeons was that "the first, best, and most important of all implements is the hand."⁷⁹ ### [c19.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.6) Surgery is one of the oldest branches of medical science in India. The Hindu term for it is \*Shalya\* or the "art of removing foreign substances from the body, especially the arrow." It seems to have had its origin in warfare and in the accidents of out-door work, e.g., hunting and agriculture. ### [c19.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.7) The Hindu surgeons performed lithotomy, could extract the dead fœtus, and could remove external matter accidentally introduced into the body, e.g., iron, stones, hair, bones, wood, etc. They were used to paracentesis, thoracis, and abdominis, and treated different kinds of inflammation, abscesses, and other surgical diseases. Hazardous operations and the art of cutting, healing ulcers, setting bones, and the use of escharotics, were the \*forte\* of a section of India's medical men. ### [c19.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.8) Dissection of the human body and venesection were normal facts in medical India. The doctors of the Sushruta school declared that dissection was necessary for a correct knowledge of the internal structure of the body. Dissection gave them an intimate knowledge of the diseases to which the body is liable. It also helped them in their surgical operations to avoid the vital parts.⁷⁹ It gave them, besides, an accurate knowledge of the human anatomy.²³ ### [c19.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.9) The Hindu surgical laboratory consisted of at least 127 instruments. The operators were used to the manipulation of saws, lancets, needles, knives, scissors, hooks, pincers, probes, nippers, forceps, tongs, catheters, syringes, loadstones, rods, etc. ### [c19.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.10) For laboratory practice students operated on wax, gourds, cucumbers, and other fruits. Tapping and puncturing were demonstrated on a leather bag of water or soft mud. Fresh hides of animals, or dead bodies, were used in the demon-stration of scarification and bleeding. The use of the probe was practised on hollow bamboos. Flexible models of the human body were in use for practice in bandaging. Caustics and cauteries were used on animals.⁷⁸ ### [c19.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.11) Lest one should smile over this primitive stage of the science, it is fair to remember the barber-surgeons of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. ### [c19.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19.12) One need, moreover, resist the temptation of comparing or contrasting this ancient Hindu sur-gical theory and practice with the marvels of modern surgery. By the side of the latest dis-coveries and inventions, any achievements of the human brain in the past, whether in the East or the West, are but children's toys. "So rapid has been our surgical progress that a Velpeau, a Sir William Ferguson or a Pancoast, all of whom died within the last thirty years, could not teach modern surgical principles nor perform a modern surgical operation; . . . Our modern operations on the brain, the chest, the abdomen, and the pelvis, would make him wonder whether we had lost all our senses, until seeing the almost uniform and almost painless recoveries, he would thank God for the magnificent progress of the last half-cen-tury, which had vouchsafed such magical, nay, almost divine, power to the surgeon."⁷⁴ ## Linked texts (1) - [Suśrutasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.susruta) — Suśruta & Nāgārjuna (siddha/alchemist), Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.sarkar-1918.c19) · Pramāṇa