Hindu Medicine c7.2

c7.2

These Vedic records of early medicine are couched in terms of imprecations against demons, sorcerers, enemies; of charms for expelling diseases wrought by demons or sent by the gods as a punishment for man's sin; of incantations intended to impart health, longevity, success and victory, sex-attractiveness and manly vigor. All these are topics of medical interest that recur in classic Hindu medicine. In the Vedas, the songs are supplemented by amulets, medicines, philters and other devices of witchcraft, and show a prevalence of the magic element. This suggestive element persists throughout Hindu medicine, it forms part of its "psycho-somatic" approach to the task of healing. In classic medicine it is balanced, in time, by an increasing emphasis on rational theory, based in general on the "humors," as active in the metabolism of the human body, and on the efficacy of those foodstuffs and drugs which were thought to correspond to them in nature.