Whenever I get sometime, I like to explore
the lives of past surgeons and doctors to know their thought process, their
times and their contributions to the society.
I feel, like most of my colleagues, extremely fascinated by the life of
Sushruta. Sushruta, the father of surgery, who lived nearly 150 years before
Hippocrates, brilliantly described the fundamental principles of surgery in his
famous ancient treatise 'Sushruta Samhita' (1,2) in 600 B.C . Sushruta taught
the surgical demeanors to his students on various modules, such as, giving incisions
on fleshy fruits and vegetables (like watermelon, cucumber, gourd etc.),
probing on moth infested and worm eaten wood which acquires soft consistency etc.
Sushruta strongly believed and advocated that
knowledge of both surgery and medicine are essential to make a good doctor who
otherwise is akin a bird with only one wing. Sushruta had been a staunch
believer in importance of knowing anatomy well for anyone who wished to become
a doctor, or a healer. For most of use,
it would be hair-raising to know about knowledge base of Sushruta even in those
days. Shushruta has astutely described surgery under eight heads C hedya
(excision), Lekhya (scarification), Vedhya (puncturing), Esya (exploration),
Ahrya (extraction), Vsraya (evacuation) and Sivya (Suturing).
On of the famous sayings of Sushruta that is
often quoted in high-profile seminars these days says, ‘Any one, who wishes to
acquire a thorough knowledge of anatomy, must prepare a dead body and carefully
observe and examine all its parts’. Upon knowing the legends of Sushruta, one
automatically tends to think of the role and scope of pre-surgical anesthesia
in those days. Sushruta famously writes that wine should be used before
operation to produce insensibility to pain. The patient who has been fed, does
not faint, and he who is rendered intoxicated, does not feel the pain of the
operation. It makes me feel so inspired when I turn around pages of history in
want of surgeons who contributed in their own ways. They had eaten more salt
than we have eaten rice. Long live Sushruta !
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