Page:The Surgical Instruments of the Hindus Vol 1.djvu/17

Rh of the body as of the soul. The example of such a temple we still find in Tārakeśvar where many sick people repair to have their maladies cured by dreams, hypnotic suggestions and incubation or temple-sleep. Similar practice was prevalent in Egypt and Greece in olden times. The modern practice of using galvanic rings and abdominal belts is merely an advanced method of indulging in superstitious ideas.

3. The patients always dreaded the surgeon's knife—especially when the use of a general anæsthetic was unknown. At the same time, the comparative success of poultices, actual and potential cauteries, and other external applications have influenced the lay mind that operations by knife are not always needed. The Hindu surgeons themselves believed in similar tenets, for Suśruta, the surgeon, remarks that "of all cutting instruments and their substitutes, caustics (or vegetable alkalies) are the most important, because by means of them, deep and superficial incisions and scarifications may be made, and derangements of the three humours (air, bile and phlegm) may be rectified"; and again he says that "with