Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 2.djvu/15

 INTRODUCTION.

In the introduction of the first volume of our translation of the Susruta-Samhita we have attempted to place before the public a correct interpretation of Vayu, Pitta and Kapha, the falsely so-called humours of the body* and it is a great pleasure to us, that our pronouncement has been very kindly accepted. In the introduction of the present volume we would draw the attention of the readers to the fact that Ayurveda is not at all an encyclopaedic work,—an Encyclopaedia of the Indian

the most essential part of the system of the Dogmatics. Humoral Pathology explains all diseases as caused by the mixture of the four cardinal humours, viz., the blood, bile, mucus or phlegm and water. Hip- pocrates first leaned towards it, but it was Plato who devoloped it. The stomach is the common source of all these humours. When diseases develop, they attract humours. The source of the bile is the liver, of the mufcus the head, of the water the spleen. Bile causes catarrhs and rheu- matism, dropsy depends on the spleen." Be it observed that among the humours of Hippocrates there is no place for Vata although in point of fact both his Physiology and Patho- logy are to be traced to the "Tri-dhatu" of Ayurveda. The secret of this anomaly is that the theory of Vata was found to be a complicated one and Hipprocates, not being able to comprehend its original import, left it out and cautiously introduced, in its stead, his own theory of "water". Sowe find "Humoral Pathology is not of Indian origin ; neither it is the same which the Indian Rishis of Rigveda developed under the name of Tri-dhatu." It is simply an imitation of Susruta who introduced blood ( ^ [< !) ci-M<j^' i ) ^s the fourth factor in the genesis of diseases. Bui the bor- rower, in his interpretation of Susruta, had made a mess of it. He retain- ed blood, but substituted "water" in place of Vkta, the most important of the three, for reasons best known to him.
 * Berdoe says :— "What is known as the Humoral Pathology formed