Principle contributors of medicine

1] Charaka

 

Charaka was one of the principal contributors to the ancient art and science of Ayurveda, a system of medicine and lifestyle developed in Ancient India.

 

He was author of the Charaka Samhita.
He is well known as the “father of medicine”.
According to Charaka’s, human effort and attention to lifestyle can prevent and control the health diseases.
Charaka seems to have been an early proponent of “prevention is better than cure” doctrine.

 

 

 

The following statement is attributed to Acharya Charaka:

A physician who fails to enter the body of a patient with the lamp of knowledge and understanding can never treat diseases. He should first study all the factors, including environment, which influence a patient’s disease, and then prescribe treatment. It is more important to prevent the occurrence of disease than to seek a cure.

Charaka contributions to the fields of physiology, etiology and embryology have been recognised.
Charaka is generally considered as the first physician to present the concept of digestion,metabolism t.
A body functions because it contains three dosha or principles, namely movement (vata), transformation (pitta) and lubrication and stability (kapha). The doshas correspond to the Western classification of humors, bile, phlegm and wind. These doshas are produced when dhatus (blood, flesh and marrow) act upon the food eaten. For the same quantity of food eaten, one body, however, produces dosha in an amount different from another body. That is why one body is different from another.
Charaka studied the anatomy of the human body and various organs.
He gave 360 as the total number of bones, including teeth, present in the human body. He was right when he considered heart to be a controlling centre.
He claimed that the heart was connected to the entire body through 13 main channels.
Apart from these channels, there were countless other ones of varying sizes which supplied not only nutrients to various tissues but also provided passage to waste products.
He also claimed that any obstruction in the main channels led to a disease or deformity in the body.

2] Shushruta

Shushruta was an ancient Indian physician, author of shushrut samhita.

The Mahabharata, an ancient Indian epic text, represents him as a son of Rishi Vishvamitra

The Shushruta-Samhita is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine and is considered a foundational text of Ayurveda.

Shushruta “The Father of Surgery” on account of the extraordinarily accurate and detailed accounts of surgery.

 
He has also been called The First Plastic Surgeon.

 

The Shushruta-Samhita contains descriptions of
1,120 illnesses,
700 medicinal plants,
64 preparations from mineral sources and
57 preparations based on animal sources.

The text discusses surgical techniques of making incisions, probing, extraction of foreign bodies, alkali and thermal cauterization, tooth extraction, excisions, and trocars for draining abscess, 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 accidental perforation of the abdomen with protrusion of omentum and the principles of fracture management, viz. traction, manipulation, apposition and stabilization including some measures of rehabilitation and fitting of prosthetic.
It enumerates six types of dislocations, twelve varieties of fractures, and classification of the bones and their reaction to the injuries, and gives a classification of eye diseases including cataract surgery.