Page:A Short History of Aryan Medical Science.djvu/127

VII.] injured by insects, or growing on situations containing nests of white ants, or where bodies have been burnt or buried, or from ground in which there is much salt. We have also referred to the classification of Charaka, based on the properties of various substances. Vagbhata, in the 15 th chapter of his popular work, has followed Sushruta's method, but the concise way of his description has a charm of its own. The method adopted by the author of "Dhanvantari Nighanta" is much the same as followed by Charaka, with this difference, that while the latter mentions one drug in the treatment of several diseases, the list of the former is free from such a repetition. The work is of great antiquity, but the name of the compiler is not known. Some ascribe the author-ship to Dhanvantari, the Father of Indian Medicine. But this cannot be correct. For in the prologue of his work the writer offers his salutations to "the Divine Dhanvantari adored alike by gods and demons." In his elaborate work he has treated of 373 drugs, exclusive of minerals.

The next important writer on medicinal herbs is Bhava Mishra, son of Lataka Mishra, to whom a reference has already been made in previous pages. He has given the names and properties