Page:The Surgical Instruments of the Hindus Vol 1.djvu/9



For researches into the state of medicine among the Ancient Hindus, we have several sources of information to scrutinise. The remarks of Dr. Payne regarding the sources of information of Anglo-Saxon Medicine may apply here with still greater force.

First is the evidence of contemporary literature about the craft of physicians and surgeons, since we are sure that there has always been a class of medicine men of one kind or another. Thus we find in the Ṛgveda, the use of artificial limb as a substitute for a limb accidentaly lost. From the Mahābhārata,