Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/35

 "Dr. Charles highly praised the process of delivery in difficult cases and even confessed that with all his great experience in midwifery and surgery he never had any idea of the like being found in all the medical works that came under his observation."

Amputation:—Amputations were freely made and medicated wines, were given to the patients as anaesthetics (i). These conclusively show that the surgery of Sushruta does not rest content with the mere bursting or opening of an abscess, and the healing of the incidental wound, but lays down processes for major operations as well. The removal of the cicatrix until it becomes of the same colour with the surrounding skin and the growth of hair thereon are suggestions which we find nowhere else.

Ophthalmic Surgery:—Of the seventy six varieties of ophthalmic diseases. Sushruta holds that fifty-one are surgical ---ra Tantram Ch. VIII) The mode of operation which is to be performed in each case has been elaborately described in the Samhita, and does not unfavourably compare in most instances with modern methods of ophthalmic surgery. Sushruta was aware of the fact that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, and that the same ray which impinges upon the retina serves the double purpose of illumining the eye and the external world, and is in itself converted into the sensation of light.

Midwifery:—It is in the region of practical midwifery that one becomes so much impressed with the greatness of Sushruta. The different turning, flexing, gliding movements, the application of the forceps in cases of difficult labour and other obstetric operations involving the destruction and mutilation of the child, such as craniotomy, were first systematically described in the Sushruta Samhita long before fillets and forceps were dreamt of in Europe, and thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Sushruta, who