Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/347

Chap.XXV.] on the nursing of an ulcer-patient (Ch.XIX.) should be adopted and observed.

The eight kinds of surgical operations have thus been briefly described. They will be dealt with later on in the Chikitsitam.

Defective Surgical Operations:—These eight forms of operations may be attended with dangers of four different kinds such as those arising from an insufficient or over performance, or from the slanting or oblique deviation (of the knife or the instrument), or from an act of self-injury on the part of the physician.

A physician (surgeon) making a wrong operation on the body of his patient either through mistake, or through the want of necessary skill or knowledge, or out of greed, fear, nervousness or haste, or in consequence of being spurned or abused, should be condemned as the direct cause of many new and unforeseen maladies. A patient, with any instinct of self-preservation, would do well to keep aloof from such a physician, or from one who makes a wrong or injudicious application of the cautery, and should shun his presence just as he would shun a conflagration or a cup of fatal poison.

On the other hand, a surgical operation, carried to excess, (or a surgical instrument inserted deeper than what is necessary, is attended with the danger of