The Lost Glory of Bharatha Varsha : Part 8

Amazing Science, Cosmology and Psychology, Medicine (Ayurveda),

Part 8

Plastic Surgery In India 2600 Years Old

Sushruta, known as the father of surgery, practiced his skill as early as 600 BCE. He used cheek skin to perform plastic surgery to restore or reshape the nose, ears, and lips with incredible results. Modern plastic surgery acknowledges his contributions by calling this method of rhinoplasty the Indian method.

125 Types Of Surgical Instruments

"The Hindus (Indians) were so advanced in surgery that their instruments could cut a hair longitudinally".
~MRS Plunket

Sushruta worked with 125 kinds of surgical instruments, which included scalpels, lancets, needles, catheters, rectal speculums, mostly conceived from the jaws of animals and birds to obtain the necessary grips. He also defined various methods of stitching: the use of horse’s hair, fine thread, fibers of bark, goat’s guts, and ant’s heads.

300 Different Operations

Sushruta describes the details of more than 300 operations and 42 surgical processes. In his compendium Sushruta Samhita he minutely classifies surgery into 8 types:

Aharyam = extracting solid bodies

Bhedyam = excision

Chhedyam = incision

Aeshyam = probing

Lekhyam = scarification

Vedhyam = puncturing

Visraavyam = evacuating fluids

Sivyam = suturing

The ancient Indians were also the first to perform an amputation, cesarean surgery, and cranial surgery. For rhinoplasty, Shushruta first measured the damaged nose, skillfully sliced off the skin from the cheek, and sutured the nose. He then placed medicated cotton pads to heal the operation.

India’s Contributions Acknowledged

Contributors:

"It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system."

Will Durant (American Historian, 1885-1981)

Language

"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either".

Sir William Jones (British Orientalist, 1746-1794)

Philosophy

~If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life and has found solutions, I should point out to India".

Max Muller (German Scholar, 1823-1900

Religion

"There can no longer be any real doubt that both Islam and Christianity owe the foundations of both their mystical and their scientific achievements to Indian initiatives".

-Philip Rawson (British Orientalist)

Atomic Physics

"After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense".

W. Heisenberg (German Physicist, 1901-1976)

Surgery

"The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians was bold and skillful. A special branch of surgery was devoted to rhinoplasty or operations for improving deformed ears, noses and forming new ones, which European surgeons have now borrowed".

Sir W.Hunter (British Surgeon, 1718-1783)

Literature

"In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us".

- R.W.Emerson (American Essayist, 1803-1882)

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