Plastic And Rhinoplastic Operations

Doctor Hirschberg of Berlin Says - "the whole plastic surgery in Europe took a new flight when these cunning devices of Indian workmen became known to us." The transplanting of sensible skin-flaps is also an entirely. Indian method (Sushruta, Sutrasthanam, Ch. XVI). It is Sushruta who first successfully demonstrated the feasibility of mending a clipt earlobe with a patch of sensible skin-flap scraped from the neck or the adjoining part.

To Sushruta is attributed the glory of discovering the art of cataract-crouching which was unknown to the surgeons of ancient Greece and Egypt. Limbs were amputated, abdominal sections were performed, fractures were set, dislocations, hernia and ruptures were reduced, haemorrhoids and fistula were removed, and we take pride in saying that the methods recommended in the Sushruta Samhita sometimes prove more successful than those adopted by the surgeons of modern Europe, as we shall have occasion to observe later on. In the case where the intestines are injured, Sushruta advises that "the protruded part should be gently replaced by following with the finger." A surgeon should enlarge the wound in it, if necessary, by means of a knife.

Mahanilatantram, Patola X. Vs. 72 74.

Mahanilatantram, Patola X. Vs. 72-74.

B. See the Article on "Heredity and some of its Surgical Aspects."

By F. C. Titzell, M. D. The Medical Advance Vol. LXIV. June 1906.

Page 357.

In the case where the intestine is severed, the severed parts should be held together by applying living black ants to their ends. Then their bodies should be cut off leaving only the heads to serve the same purpose which in modern improved European surgery an animal tissue like catgut is expected to fulfill. After this the intestine should be fairly replaced in the abdominal cavity and the external opening stitched and properly dressed. We abstain here from a lengthy description of the different methods recommended by the Sushruta in cases of abdominal and peritoneal wounds. We only ask our readers to compare this Chapter (II Chikitsasthanam) of the Sushruta Samhita with the Chapter in any work on European chirurgery which deals with the same subject. Certain medicinal plasters were used to be applied to localise the shafts of arrows embedded in the limbs of wounded soldiers and their exact locations were ascertained from the inflammation caused by the application of such a plaster with a precision which would be sometimes welcome even in these days of Rontgen rays.

Lithotomic Operations

In these cases, elaborate instructions have been given for making the perineal incision, as well as about the care and general management of the patient after the operation. In a case of Shukra-shmari (seminal or spermatic concretion) the formation and existence of which have been very recently discovered by English pathologists, Sushruta enjoins that the stone, if in the urethra, should be removed with the help of Anyvasanam and urethral enematas, failing which the penis should he cut open and the concretion extracted with the help of a hook. Kaviraj Umesh Chandra Gupta in the introduction to his Vaidyaka Shavda-Sindhu remarks, that he and Dr. Durgadasa Gupta M. B. translated the Chapters on lithotomic operations and instrumental parturition of the Sushruta Samhita for the perusal of Dr Charles. the then Principal of the Medical College, Calcutta.

"Dr. Charles highly praised the process of delivery in difficult cases and even confessed that with all his great experience in midwifery and surgery he never had any idea of the like being found in all the medical works that came under his observation."