Hindu Medicine c8.200

c8.200

The Hindu mind largely yielded to this temptation. There was no systematic experimental research continuously yielding startling new facts, whereby to check the speculative flight of unfounded theorizing and empty generalization. There were no closely related sciences, more advanced in methods and results, to dispel the mist of imaginary ideas which, covering up the objective facts found by intuition and experience, posed as a true interpretation of these facts. The deceptive satisfaction which this attitude of ancient Hindu medicine afforded its adepts through its logical consistency and through the harmony of numbers, through the balance of characteristics and through corresponding patterns, gave to the Hindu doctor the illusion of real insight into the hidden connections and causations of facts, a glimpse, as it were, into the working of nature. This situation somewhat resembles that of the time when Galenic tradition in its Arabic garb was still, in the opinion of the average Western practitioner, the last word on the art of healing; yet, the Indian attitude is superior to the earlier Western one through its intuitive genius and actual command of the details of its environment.