Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/32

 which he b/'ought a niyid stored with luminous analogies from the lower animals. It was he who first classified all ♦.surgical operations into five differe'nt kinds, and grouped them under heads such as Aharya (extractions of solid bodies), Bhedya (excising), Chhedya (incising), Eshya (probing), Lekhya (scarifying), Sivya (suturing), Vedhya (puncturing) and Visravaniya (evacuating fluids). The surgery of Sushruta recognises a hundred and twenty-five different instruments, constructed after the shape of beasts and birds, and authorises the surgeon to devise new instruments according to the exigencies of each case. The qualifications and equipments of a surgeon are practically the sam*^ as are recommended at the present time. A light refreshment is enjoined to be given to the patient before a surgical operation, while abdominal operations, and operations m the mouth are advised to be performed while the patient is fasting. Sushruta enjoins the sick room to be fumigated with the vapours of white mustard, bdellium, Nimva ' leaves, and resinous gums of Shala trees, etc., which fore-shadows the antiseptic ^bacilli) theory of modern times. The number of surgical implements described in the Samhita is decidedly small in comparison with the almost inexhaustible resources of western surgery, and one may be naturally led to suspect the au' henticity of the glorious achievements claimed to have been performed by the surgeons of yore ; but then their kno vledge of the properties and virtues of drugs were so great that cases, which are reckoned as surgical nowadays, were cured with the help of medicines internally^pplied. "Surgery," says Tantram, is mutilation not doctoring (i). It should only be employed when the