ഭാരതീയവൈദ്യശാസ്ത്രം....
ലോകത്തിന്റെ മുഴുവുൻ നന്മയ്കു വേണ്ടി പ്രാര്ഥിച്ചിരുന്ന
രാഷ്ട്രമായിരുന്നു ഭാരതം. ഭാരതത്തിലെ ഏതൊരു മംഗളകര്മവും അവസാനിച്ചിരുന്നത്
ലോകാസമസ്താ സുഖിനോ ഭവന്തു എന്ന മന്ത്രം ചൊല്ലിയായിരുന്നു. ആധുനിക വൈദ്യശാസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ
പിതാവ് എന്നറിയപ്പെടുന്നത് ഹിപ്പോക്രാറ്റിസ് ആണ്. ചരകന്റേയും സുശ്രുതന്റേയും
ഗ്രന്ഥങ്ങളെ നാം ഭാരീതയർ തള്ളിപ്പറഞ്ഞ് 1947
ൽ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം ലഭിച്ചിട്ടും നാം എപ്പോഴും
സ്വീകരിക്കുന്നത് വിദേശിയരുടെ വാക്കുകളെയാണ്.. അവരുടെ തന്നെ വാക്കുകൾ
വായിച്ചിട്ടെങ്കിലും ഭാരതീയശാസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ
വില നമുക്ക് മനസ്സിലാക്കാനായാൽ തന്നെ അത് ധാരാളമാകും.
१. The ancient Hindus attained as thorough a proficiency in medicine and
surgery as any people whose acquisitions are recorded. This might be expected
because patient’s attention and natural streakiness would render them excellent
observers whilst the extent and fertility of their native country would furnish
them with many valuable drugs and medicaments. Their diagnosis is said, in
consequence to define and distinguish symptoms with great accuracy, and their materia
medica is most voluminous”-
Prof.wilson.vol. ।।।
२. “Indian medicine dealt with the whole area of the science
it described the structure of the body, its organs, ligaments, muscles, vessels
and tissues. The materia medica of the Hindus embraces a vast collection of
drugs belonging to the minerals, vegetables and animal kingdoms, many of which
have now been adopted by European Physicians. Their pharmacy contained
ingenious processes of preparation, with elaborate directions for the
administration and classification of medicines. Much attention was devoted to
hygiene, regimen of the body and diet.
Sir William Hunter.
३. In surgery, too the Indians seem to have attained a special proficiency and
in this department European surgeons might, perhaps even of the present
day, still learns something from them, as indeed they have already borrowed
from them the operation of Rhinoplastry”.
Prof.Webber’s Indian Literature.
४. ”Their
(The Hindus) surgery is as remarkable as their medicine”.
Elphinston’s
History of India p.१४७
५. ”The
surgical instruments of the Hindus were sufficiently sharp, indeed as to be
capable of dividing a hair longitudinally”.
Mrs.
Manning - Ancient and Mediaeval India Vol. II. p ३४६.
६. ”The
surgery of the ancient Indian Physicians was bold and skilful. They conducted
amputation, arrested the bleeding by pressure, by cup shaped bandage and
boiling oil, practiced lithotomy, performed operations and the abdomen and
uterus,
cured hernia, fistula, piles, set broken bones and dislocations,
and were dexterous in the extraction of foreign substances
from the body. A special branch of surgery was devoted to Rhinoplastry or
operation for improving deformed ears and noses and ‘forming new ones’. A
useful operation which European surgeons have now borrowed. The ancient Indian
surgeons have also mentioned a cure for neuralgia, analogues to the modern
cutting of the fifth nerve above the eyebrow. They devoted great care to the
making of the surgical instruments and to the training of students by means of
operations performed on wax spread on board or on the tissues and cells of
vegetable kingdom and upon dead animals.
They
were expert in midwifery not shrinking from the most critical operations and in
the disease of women and children. Their practice of physic embraced the
classifications, causes, symptoms and treatment of diseases, diagnosis and
prognosis. Considerable advances were also made in Veterinary science and
monographs exist on the diseases of horses, elephants etc.
Sir
W W Hunter’s I G India २२१.
७. “The Hindus medicine is an independent development”
Sir
W W Hunter.
८. “The Hindus can lay claim to have been acquainted with
the main principles of curative and preventive medicine at a time when Europe
was still immersed in ignorant surgery. I am not sure whether it is generally
known that the ‘science of medicine originated in India’, but this is the case
and the science was first exported from India to Arabia and there to Europe.
Down to the close of the १७th century,
European physicians learnt the science from the works of the Arabic doctors;
while the Arabic doctors many centuries before had obtained their knowledge
from the works of great Indian physicians such as ‘Dhanvantari’, ‘Charaka’,
‘Sushruta’.
Lord
Ampthil (Late Governor of Madras)
९. “It is impossible to exhibit India’s ancient science to
Europeans unacquainted with Sanskrit or not having access to the native medical
libraries, in which we understand many medical works are withheld from
Europeans”.
Mrs.
Manning A & H India Vol. p.३५३.
१०. “Their chemical skill is a fact more striking and more unexpected”.
Mrs.
Elphinstone.
११. “I wish to impress upon you most strongly that you should
not run away with the idea that everything that is good in the way of medicine
is contained within the ringed fence of allopathy or western medicine. The
longer I remain in India and the more I see of the country and the people, the
more convinced. I am that many of the imperial methods of treatment adopted by
Vaidyas and Hakims are of the greatest value and there is no doubt whatever
that their ancestors knew ages ago many things which are now a day’s being
brought forward as new discoveries”.
Sir
Parday Sukis D.G of the I. M. S.
१२. “I know that you (Vaidyas and Hakims) can diagnose and
treat all diseases and that your treatment of chronic diseases is remarkable. Your
treatment of such diseases as Asthma, Ascitis, Insanity diseases of the brain
and spinal cord and generative complaints is very successful under the climatic
condition of the country and the habits of the people ----As you know India is
rich in medicinal products and herbs, many hundreds of which are incorporated
in the Indian pharmacopeia. I trust that is time goes on and social intercourse
advances, there will be greater co-operation amongst gentle men practicing the
two systems of medicine; for we can
undoubtedly learn much from each other, for our object is the same, namely, the
cure of diseases”.
Col.
Malaren I.M.S
१३. “In physics and chemistry you have advanced for more.
In medicine you are still more advanced Indian medicine, both of the Hindus and
Mohammadan is superior to the medicine of the west”.
Dr.
A. Besant
१४.
“For the poor the indigenous systems are by far the cheaper, as there are plentiful
supplies of Ayurvedic drugs available in every part of India and they are used
mostly in the fresh form as juices, decoctions etc, which elements costly
pharmaceutical processes”.
