History Of Hindoo Medical Science

Author : Benoy Kurmar Sarkar
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781533272720
Total Pages : 96 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (727 download)

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Download or read book Hindu Achievements in Exact Science written by Benoy Kurmar Sarkar and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-05-14 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is seldom that a book of such slender proportions contains such an encyclopedic amount of information, written, withal, so interestingly. As the advertisement states, "The main object of this little book is to furnish some of the chronological links and logical affinities between the scientific investigations of the Hindus and those of the Greeks, Chinese, and Saracens." The claims of the brilliant young author, for Professor Sarkar is a young man, are supported by a bibliography of seventy-two names of which fifty-one are non-Hindu, most of them English. He reminds us that positive science is but three-hundred years old, even in Europe, and that the Saracens are admitted to have been the teachers of the Greeks in those distant times which are here characterized as the pre-scientific era of science. The Saracens having learned from the Hindus, the latter were at least on a par with the European nations until the 13th century A.D. We must remember that "we are now living in the midst of the discoveries and inventions of the last few years of the nineteenth century." We are accustomed to think of these people as meditative but unpractical, and to speak of the "dreamy Hindu." This little book goes far to give us a more just idea of them. They are shown to have been pioneers in at least sixteen branches of science, including Mathematics (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Co-ordinated Geometry, and Differential Calculus). They knew scientifically something of Physics, Chemistry, Metallurgy, and the Chemical Arts, probably because of their very practical nature. Some of the arts in which the people of India are known to be proficient are,-bleaching, dyeing, calico printing, tanning, soap-making, glass-making, manufacture of steel. The secret of manufacturing the so-called Damascus blades was learned by the Saracens from the Persians who had obtained it from the Hindus. They also made gunpowder and fireworks and preparations of cements. So early as the sixth century the mercurial operations alone were nineteen in number. Pliny, in the first century, "noted the industrial position of the Hindus as paramount in the world." The preparation of fast dyes and the tempering of steel were two original and important discoveries made by them. Even in medicine and surgery they had some proficiency and for the times a surprising amount of accurate scientific knowledge. To our surprise we read that "dissection of the human body and venesection were normal facts in medical India," and "the doctors of the Sushruta School declared that dissection was necessary for a correct knowledge of the internal structure of the body. -The Nature-Study Review, Vol. 15