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Hindu Medicine c4: Editor's Foreword

Hindu Medicine c4

Language
English

Editor's Foreword

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Henry R. Zimmer delivered the seventh course of the Hideyo Noguchi Lectureship in November 1940. When he died on March 20, 1943, after an illness of a few days, the first lecture and the greater part of the second had been revised and had been in my hands for some time. Among the manuscripts which he left, however, the continuation of the second chapter was not found. There were only nineteen more pages that contain the revised beginning of the third and last lecture of the series, thirty-three pages, corrected but not retyped, that describe certain diseases and cures, and finally two appendices that comprise the translation of the tables of contents of Suśruta-Saṃhitā and of the Encyclopedia of Elephant Medicine.¹

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¹ Mrs. Zimmer and Professor E. Frank together with Dr. H. Steiner sorted the manuscripts left. By courtesy of Mrs. Zimmer the medical material has been deposited in the Welch Medical Library, where it may be consulted by scholars interested in Hindu medicine.

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When I first discussed with Mrs. Zimmer and Dr. Sigerist what should be done with the manuscript, it was decided to make an attempt to piece the book together from the material just referred to, from Zimmer’s notes extant in fair number,

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and from the manuscript of the papers as they were read. Yet it turned out that the notes did not cover more than brief sketches of problems to be dealt with. Moreover, Zimmer had not only enlarged on the content of the lectures of 1940; he had also decided to reorganize his material. No outline of the new arrangement was preserved. It would appear from one of his letters that at the end of the second chapter he planned to speak about the relation between Hindu medicine and Greek medicine.² Otherwise it remains unclear how he intended to proceed; whether sections taken out of the first two chapters were to be integrated into the later context, and if so, where they were to be inserted; how the missing parts of the second and third chapters were to be composed. Every attempt to bring out the book as its author had envisaged it had therefore to be abandoned.

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² This letter accompanied the first chapter, sent to me in the spring of 1942, if I remember correctly (Zimmer rarely dated his letters).

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We then considered other possibilities. The thought that somebody else should try to complete the manuscript was almost immediately discarded. No scholar, however competent, would have been

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able to continue the work in Zimmer’s style and manner, so distinctly individual in the treatment of Hindu medicine, as in everything else he ever wrote. For a long time we pondered over the feasibility of adding from Zimmer’s original manuscript and from his other writings a collection of miscellaneous statements concerning medical theory and practice. But these casual remarks were difficult to group and did not form a unity. Taken by themselves they did not convey a clear picture of his insight into those aspects of Hindu medicine which are not covered in his last writing. Moreover, the impressiveness of the finished lectures seemed to be diminished rather than enhanced by such a medley of disjointed aphorisms.

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At last it was agreed to print the first two lectures as they stood. For fragmentary as they are, they are, all of us felt, of no small importance. They contain numerous translations that reflect Zimmer’s thorough understanding of the content and language of Sanskrit literature. They strive to explore a hitherto neglected perspective of the interpretation of Hindu medical texts. When Zimmer sent me the first chapter, he wrote: “The strictly positivistic and descriptive analysis of Jolly is not

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yet antiquated; it is such an incredibly decent and clean piece of work that you get discouraged whenever you try to deal anew with the details and to concentrate on them. But I believe nobody has ever tried to represent the atmosphere as such and what it means for a more correct understanding of the details.”³ Such a representation was what he aimed at. And although, as he wrote me in 1942, he was aware of shortcomings in his own work, he was convinced that in the main he had succeeded. Indeed the peculiar flair of Hindu medicine, its largely mythical and allegorical ingredients, are here grasped and made explicit by one who was particularly gifted for bringing to life the implications of myth and allegory.⁴

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³ The passage is taken from the letter quoted in note 2.

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⁴ Zimmer probably would have made a number of corrections in the wording and order of his final text. The manuscript is somewhat uneven. Repetitions occur, and in certain instances one gains the impression that the author was still groping for the most adequate formulation of his thoughts. I felt entitled to change expressions or the structure of sentences only where in my opinion this was indispensable for bringing out clearly the implied meaning. Otherwise, I have restricted myself to correcting mistakes that were obviously overlooked in the manuscript. I did not venture to tamper with Zimmer’s individual style.

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In the fragmentary interpretation which we are submitting to the reader, however, the general

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picture of Hinduism, as the author presupposes it, is perhaps not sufficiently clear. It seemed advisable, therefore, to outline in some detail Zimmer’s concept of Hindu culture, the view of Indian life into which he fitted his analysis of Hindu medicine. Besides, it seemed a worthwhile undertaking to summarize those findings which Zimmer made in the course of his earlier studies, yet was prevented from integrating into the book that should have displayed all his knowledge concerning medicine. Lastly, it seemed a defensible act of piety to try to save whatever possible of the scattered notes and outlines for the missing chapters. The preface, which I have ventured to write with the consent of Mrs. Zimmer and Dr. Sigerist, is meant to supply these wants. My only qualifications for such a task are my long-lasting friendship with Zimmer and an amateur acquaintance with his work, based on our personal relationship and on my sincere respect for his accomplishment. Since it is the sole purpose of this sketch to give an account of Zimmer’s work without any endeavor at evaluation, my lack of critical judgment is perhaps less a disadvantage than it would be ordinarily. That I have introduced my report by a few remarks on Zimmer’s personality, the reader will,

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I trust, pardon. The better we know the spirit and character of a writer, the more easily can we explain his utterances, says Spinoza, whose works Zimmer once gave to me as a present from his library. This statement, whether or not it is true in general, certainly holds true of him who endeavored to find his way back to the mysteries of India.

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Finally, I should like to say that Alda Oertly corrected and polished Zimmer’s English when he was preparing his manuscript. He was the more conscious of the difficulties of writing in a foreign language since in his native tongue his thought and his style were perfectly matched. Once Mrs. Oertly had started working with him, he felt at ease, and he told me repeatedly how grateful he was to her for her understanding devotion to the task which she had agreed to undertake. It is in his stead that I now wish to thank her, and I add my own thanks for her assistance. I am also indebted to Professor Paul E. Dumont for his generous cooperation. He kindly went over the galleys and made sure that no errors had crept into the Sanskrit terminology.

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LUDWIG EDELSTEIN

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Baltimore, Md. April, 1947

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