Hindu Medicine c7.229

c7.229

Another lesson in store for him is concerned with the handling of the equipment of surgery. There are twenty kinds of knives and sharp needles (śastra), and more than a hundred other implements needed during operations, including the instruments for dressing to protect wounds against infections: twenty-four pincers and forceps (svastika), two tongs (samdaṃśa), two hooks (tāla), twenty tubular instruments, catheters (nāḍī), and so forth, thirty probes (śalākā), twenty-six articles of dressing; cloth, thread, and similar utensils (upayantra).¹⁵