0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

.'K.
INDIA.
take surgery as the foundation of your discourse !' Indian
medicine has in this sphere of work achieved remarkable
results. The Indian doctors were familiar with amputation,
tapping the abdomen, laparotomy, suturing the intestine;
they removed stone from the bladder by operation, treated
cataract by couching the lens, undertook plastic operations,
practised turning and extraction in the case of abnormal
presentations in childbed and undertook Caesarean section
in the case of those who died before delivery.* The great
number of different instrumentst shows how experienced
they were in surgical technicalities : we find among them
knives of various shapes, lancets, cupping-glasses, trocars,
probes, reed-like catheters, scissors, bone-saws, polypus-
forceps, specula and many more. The examination of the
body of the patient was performed with great care.
SUSRUTA (Chap. 10) admonished young doctors to bring
all five senses to bear on this subject. " By the sense of
hearing we can, for instance, determine whether the con­
tents of an abscess are frothy and gaseous, for the emptying
of such is attended with noise; by the sense of feeling we
may know whether the skin is hot or cold, rough or smooth,
thick or thin; by the sense of sight we can determine
corpulence or emaciation, vital power, energy, and change
of colour; by the sense of taste we can assure ourselves
concerning the state of the urine in diabetes and other
diseases of the urinary tract; and by the sense of smell we
can recognise the peculiar perspiration of manyy, diseases
which has an important bearing on their identification."
"At the same time the patient must be interrogated con/fi
cerning the character of the quarter he lives in, considera­
tion must be taken of the time of year, the patient's position,
his apprehension, the nature of his pain, his natural powers,
his appetite and the duration of his illness : we then\
should proceed to the examination of the urine, the gaseous!
* VUI.LERS in the Janus, Bd. i, S. 242 el seq. Breslau, 1846.
t Well collated in T. A. WISE'S Review of the History of Medicine among
the Asiatics, London, 1867, Vol. i, p. 354 et stq.