Page:A Short History of Aryan Medical Science.djvu/197

X.] reach that perfection to which the modern science has attained. The successes of modern surgery are admitted on all hands to be prodigious, but that should not detract from the credit due to the ancients. The stock of surgical instruments and appliances used by the ancients was no doubt very small and meagre as compared with the armamentarium of a surgeon of the nineteenth century. The reason assigned for this fact is that the instruments they used were enough for their requirements, and that their acquaintance with the properties and virtues of drugs was so very great that most of the diseases and injuries now dealt with by the surgeon were then cured medicinally. An abscess, for instance, was either made to subside by certain kinds of plaster, or the swelling was assisted to mature by means of poultices, and when ripe was opened, not always with the knife, but by the application of a mixture of Danti, Chitrak, Eranda, and some other drugs. Cases of urinary calculi were treated with anti-lithics, and diuretics were administered so as to act as solvents for the stone, and thus the necessity of cutting was, if the patient so desired, obviated. It was only in rare cases, and for effecting a speedy recovery or affording immediate relief, that they