SUSHRUTA SAMHITA AN INTRODUCTION :-
In ancient India, Medical science were divided into two major traditions, the Atreya School based in Takshashila & the Dhanvantri School based in Benaras.
In ancient India, Medical science were divided into two major traditions, the Atreya School based in Takshashila & the Dhanvantri School based in Benaras.
The Atreya school gave more prominence to the practice of medicine and their primary text was the Charaka Samahita while the Dhanvantri school gave greater prominence to surgery and referred to the Sushruta Samhita.
Now coming to sushruta, some scholars are saying that there was original Sushruta Samhita which had 5 books & 120 chapters. Later was redacted by Nagarjuna & some were added as supplements giving rise to 6 books & 186 chps.
The text in its current form contains details of around 1120 medical conditions, 700 medicinal plants, 400 surgeries and 121 surgical instruments!
Sushruta devoted his whole life to the pursuit of surgery proper. It was he who first classified all surgical operations into five different kinds & grouped them under heads such as
Aharya (extractions of solid bodies), Bhedya(excising), Chhedya(incising), Eshya(probing), Lekhya(scarifying), Sivya (suturing), Vedhya(punc-turing) and Visravaniya (evacuating fluids).
Sushruta emphasized on qualities of operating room too! He fumigated the room with vapours of white mustard, bdellium, nimva leaves, resinous gums of shala trees etc which foreshadows the antiseptic theory of modern times !
Now lets see some of the surgical operations he was excelled at,
RHINOPLASTY & OTHER PLASTIC SURGERIES - Sushruta was very famous in treating these cases. He was the first one who did precise and comprehensive Surgery on deformed nose & cleft ear lobes using skin grafts
RHINOPLASTY & OTHER PLASTIC SURGERIES - Sushruta was very famous in treating these cases. He was the first one who did precise and comprehensive Surgery on deformed nose & cleft ear lobes using skin grafts
LITHOTOMIC OPERATIONS - Sushruta was very well known in perineal incisions surgery as he did a number of Sx based on that, like removing stone from urethra etc !
He also did number of amputation on infected limbs& operating on abscess etc. Apart from that he also excelled in obstetrics part where he understood the mechanism of labour & operated it. He should also be credited for various eyes surgeries ( will discuss in detail separately )
He also taught his students how to operate on surgery by giving them practice through using plants such as pumpkin, cucumber, leather bag, bladder of dead animals for incision and sutures.
Apart from these, sushruta has written detailed analysis on how to treat fractures & dislocations, extraction of splinters, treating ulcer cases, hernia operations, cataract surgeries, limb operations, removing hemorrhoids & fistula etc !
Moreover sushruta was also interested in cosmogeny - study of origin and evolution of universe. He proposed the cosmic matter evolved from the unmanifested one, which again evolved into ahaṃkāra divided into 3 kind - vaikārika, taijasa and bhūtādi /tāmasa.
Dr. Frank McDowell, editor of the journal plastic and reconstructive surgery in his book " the source book of plastic surgery " described sushruta and his work as following,
Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India, some 2500 yrs ago. But unfortunately today's generation don't even acknowledge the great works done by our ancestors !
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