An Introduction to surgery

Most of us know that surgery was born in 18th century by the attempt of John Hunter. But surgery dates back to ancient times, the Before Christ era. Surgery was practised in many civilizations like Chinese, Egyptian, Greek. But the progress which Indian civilization made can't be compared to these. World's first cesarean baby was Mauryan King, Bindusara (son of Chandragupta Maurya). Although ancient surgery lacked the technology of making both mother and child survive but we must keep the time in mind. Indian scholar and surgeon, perhaps World's first surgeon Sushruta was a man from 6th century BCE. He is worthy of the name "father of surgery". In his treaty, Sushruta Samhita, he has given description of several surgeries. Some of them are - draining hydrocele and ascitic fluid, removal of the prostate gland, urethral stricture dilatation, vesicolithotomy, hernia surgery,caesarian section, management of haemorrhoids, fistulae, laparotomy and management of intestinal obstruction, perforated intestines and many many more. Apart from these the book contains description of about 1,120 illnesses, 700 medicianl plants, 64 preparations based on mineralogy and 57 preparations based on animal products. Sushruta was oppposed dogmatic Hindus of that era. They felt that dissection of dead bodies was satanic and it was a deliberate attepmt of disrespecting the dead and religion as well. He with his students used to steal dead bodies and dissect them to study surgery. One must raise the question about how anesthesia was done. In those days anesthetic chemicals were not available and hence opium was given to the patient. It must be said that many of the tools which were used by Sushruta are still used by modern surgeons.

This is how and where surgery began and ushered.

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