SUSHRUTA AND MODERN SURGERY

The British East India Company established the Indian Medical Service (IMS) as early as 1764 to look after Europeans in British India.. IMS officers headed military and civilian hospitals in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, and also accompanied the Company's ships and army. The British also established on 21 June 1822 "The Native Medical Institution"(NMI) in Calcutta, where medical teaching was imparted in the vernacular. Treatises on anatomy, medicine, and surgery were translated from European languages for the benefit of the students. From 1826 onwards, classes on Unani and Ayurvedic medicine were held respectively at the Calcutta madrasa and the Sanskrit college. In 1827 John Tyler, an Orientalist and the first superintendent of the NMI started lectures on Mathematics and Anatomy at the Sanskrit College which was also founded by the British.  In general, the medical education provided by the British at this stage involved parallel instructions in western and indigenous medical systems. Translation of western medical texts was encouraged and though dissection was not performed, clinical experience was a must. But the government was not satisfied with the medical education imparted at the Native Medical Institution. Ayurveda had no knowledge of virology, anatomy,   surgery, Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose & Throat), pediatrics and neurology. Surgical instruments were never used in Ayurveda because Ayurvedic system stressed a balance of three elemental energies or humors: Vāyu vāta (air , space – "wind"), pitta (fire & water – "bile"). This was a primitive belief and Ayurvedic conception of elemental energies has no scientific basis for the treatment of patients.. Even basic equipments such as thermometer, stethoscope and BP apparatus were unknown to Ayurvedic physicians and they were seeing them for the first time in 1822 at the NMI.  The British wanted to improve the quality of medical education in India. Lord William Bentinck appointed a Committee and  it  consisted of Dr John Grant as President and J C C Sutherland, C E Trevelyan, Thomas Spens, Ram Comul Sen and M J Bramley as members. The Committee criticized the medical education imparted at the NMI for the inappropriate nature of its training and the examination system as well as for the absence of courses on practical anatomy The Committee recommended that the state found a medical college 'for the education of the natives'. The various branches of medical science cultivated in Europe should be taught in this college. When the Calcutta Medical College was established in 1835, the Indian Medical Service (IMS) was dissolved and the Ayurvedic students, except Madhusudan Gupta, were expelled. Madhusudan Gupta is the first Indian surgeon, not the fictive Sushruta. It was during this period that the infuriated Ayurvedic teachers and students produced spurious Sanskrit manuscripts in the pretentious names of Chraka and Sushruta.  The instruments shown as Sushrutas’ are not excavated artefacts but imaginary drawings, crude imitation of surgical instruments of Calcutta Medical College.  The Asiatic Society scholars in Calcutta accepted these fake manuscripts as genuine and published research papers in the Society journal. To legitimize this false claim, fanatical Sanskrit pundits, Ayurvedic physicians and some Orientalists chalked out a well planned strategy by which they linked the fictitious Sushrusa with world renowned Western surgeons. In 1815, Joseph Constantine Carpue wrote about a rhinoplasty performed on a wounded soldier whose nose had been all but destroyed in battle, and another patient whose nose had been damaged by arsenic. His work, the “Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose” became a standard work in medical colleges. Although the Italian surgeon Tagliacozzi’s treatise on making a nose from an arm flap, De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem(Venice, 1597), was an outstanding work, the condemnation of operation by religious authorities resulted in complete withdrawal of this practice. Students of Calcutta Medical College, founded in 1835, were taught about the works of  Tagliacozzi and Carpue and the successful rhinoplasty performed by Carpue .Ayurvedic proponents wanted to show that Carpue and Tagiliacozzi learned rhinoplasty from Sushruta’s technique.    It is quite transparent that the essential points in Carpue’s work were plagiarized and Sanskrit manuscripts were published in the fictitious name of Sushruta. To camouflage this act, Ayurvedic physicians claim that Carpue came to India and stayed for 20 years to learn Shusruta's technique of rhinoplasty. But the fact of the matter is that Carpue had never come to India. The British medical journal Lancet is categorical that Carpue stayed and worked in London only. They also claim that the Italian Tagliacozzi also learnt from Sushruta's method. To substantiate this false claim they had invented a story that Sushruta's work was translated into Arabic during the Abbasid Caliphate and from there it went to Europe. What a fantastic manipulation! There is no Arabic translation of Shusruta's work during the Caliphate.The famous physician in the Caliphate was Avicenna and he produced treatises and works that summarized the vast amount of knowledge that scientists had accumulated, and was very influential through his encyclopedias, The Canon of Medicine and The Book of Healing. There is absolutely no reference to Sushruta or rhinoplasty in his works. What is more, there is no statement by European surgeons that they received Sushruta's Arabic translation from the Arabs during the Renaissance. As there is little evidence to prove their false contention, Ayurvedic exponents now say that Sushruta’s technique of rhinoplasty is mentioned in The Gentleman’s Magazine. The Gentleman’s Magazine was founded in London in 1731 and it was not a contemporary account because the  date of birth and period Shushruta  lived   are still uncertain. There is absolutely no reference to Sushruta in the Gentleman’s Magazine, although it contains a fabricated story of nose grafting, not by a doctor but by an illiterate mason (brick-maker). And that claim is also made on the basis of an imaginary painting of a grafted nose and not on genuine records.

Another ridiculous attempt to legitimize the fictitious Sushruta was the Bower’s manuscript. Like the Pitman’s hoax,   Bower produced some manuscripts The Bower Manuscript, like the Pitsdown Hoax, is a hoax. Hamilton Bower wanted to get name and fame for himself. During the period of his service in India, the Asiatic Society was making all endeavors to construct the History of India. In the absence of printed texts, scholars of the Society were collecting old manuscripts. Due to the long Muslim rule and due to the political uncertainty in India there was no manuscript library, no storehouse and no temple to preserve manuscripts, if at all they were available. When the Society called for manuscripts, thousands of fake Sanskrit manuscripts were produced and they were presented before scholars. Many English men such as William Jones, Colebrooke, Wilson and many others used Brahmins to produce fake manuscripts. Strachey and Colebrooke attempted to prove knowledge of science and mathematics in ancient India. In the absence of printed texts, it was easy for these scholars to invent stories by using spurious and manipulated Sanskrit manuscripts. Jones wanted to establish the fact that ancient India had advanced system of surgery and scientific knowledge. Jones wanted to be knighted and for this purpose he produced many stories using spurious manuscripts. One Islam Akhun was notorious for producing fake manuscripts in Sanskrit and Brahmi. Hamilton Bower probably would have got these fake manuscripts from Akhun. Hoernle who deciphered these manuscripts was also fooled by these fake manuscripts.  Birch bark-leaf manuscripts were alleged to have been found in 1909, and one may wonder how could these manuscripts survive for several centuries? We are told that fortune seekers found these manuscripts. How did the manuscripts find their way to Turkestan? So on the face of it everything is fraudulent and it was a cunning attempt of Bower to get name and fame for him. Doubting the authenticity of the works, Sir Aurel Stein met with Islam Akhun in Khotan in the spring of 1901. Stein questioned Akhun on the manuscripts and concluded that the manuscripts were fake. Eventually, he exposed Akhun for imitating Brahmi characters and inventing similar-looking characters. There are fanciful claims of achievements in plastic surgery and even the existence of  aeroplanes in ancient India, but they are not buttressed by solid evidences. There are manipulated Sanskrit manuscripts about surgery, but impartial investigation will prove they were all plagiarized from medical books and written in Sanskrit to claim precedence and originality. The Indian History Congress in its 75^th session, held in Delhi on December 31, 2014, has, in a resolution, criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent statement that an ancient plastic surgeon must have attached the head of an elephant on the body of Ganesha. At its ongoing 75th session here, it criticised attempts in "influential quarters" to rewrite history through "ancient mythology", "speculative chronology" and "fresh myths". "Unfortunately even the Prime Minister has suggested that in the hoary past Indians had learnt, and then, forgotten, plastic surgery of a kind going far beyond what is now possible," the resolution said.  Famous economist  and Nobel  laureate  Amartya Sen commented at the Indian Science Congress 2015  that some evidence is required in the controversial claims made in the Indian Science Congress regarding the achievements of ancient Indians. He said, "The idea that human beings can fly is known to human beings from birth. The idea that human beings might be able to be on the air has been talked about a lot. If that was true, then we would like to find some evidence." Further, he elaborated, "As our epics show, Indians have thought about flying for a long time. But it would be fanciful to say that India invented the aeroplane. If ancient India had airfare technology, we would like to see some evidence. I agree there are a lot of claims that have nothing to do with achievements."   The Hindu newspaper commented (January 6, 2015) " The 102nd Indian Science Congress being held in Mumbai will be remembered for a very long time to come, but for all the wrong reasons. For the first time, the science congress had a session on “Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit”. If the Indian Science Congress had long lost its eminence as a forum where results of serious science being done in the country are presented and discussed in most sessions, the inclusion of Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit has only lowered its standing further. Even as a public session, there is no real reason whatsoever for it to have been included in the proceedings. At best, a session could have been devoted to the history of Indian science which has real and substantial achievements to celebrate, with serious scholars working on the subject presenting papers. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting the tone for this antiquity frenzy with his implausible claims that cosmetic surgery was practised thousands of years ago and in-vitro fertilisation-like procedure was resorted to long back, and different political leaders following it up with several other incredulous claims well before the start of the national event, the reason for the inclusion of the session becomes supremely clear. Instead of fostering scientific temper, the congress has provided a forum to seed the minds of young people with pseudoscience. Some of the papers presented were about Indians’ “knowledge of making aeroplanes” that could undertake interplanetary travel, between 7000 and 6000 BC, and “radars” that worked on the principle of detecting energy given out by animate and inanimate objects and finding out if a body was dead or alive.