Brief life history and work of Charaka, the father of modern medicine.
Most of what is known about Indian medical science derives from this text and two others, the Susruta Samhita and the Ashtangahridaya Samhita.
Instead of appeasing deities and making sacrifices, practitioners were now looking at clinical problems and deciding how to treat them based on the specific disease. Perhaps most significant, they developed concepts of health and disease which they applied in practice.
The science of medicine became known as Ayurveda, or science of life. Just aswe now seek to explain a disease as a problem of nutrition or genetics, Ayurvedic physicians formed a medical theory that guided the way they evaluated patients and diseases.
Ayurveda proposed that human disorders arose from an imbalance of three vital substances, or humors, present in every living creature: wind, bile, and phlegm (that is, mucus). Ayurveda emphasized prevention through cleansing, exercise, diet, and good habits.
By the time Charaka was written, doctoring was recognized as a profession, and sons often followed in the footsteps of their fathers.
According to Charaka the medical profession was reserved for the highest castes (categories of a hereditary social order in South Asia). Because surgery was considered to be the work of low-caste persons such as barbers, thetext does not deal with surgery. Moreover, Indian physicians were not allowed to handle or to dissect corpses, which limited students' ways of learning about how the human body worked.
It (Charaks Compendium of Diseases) is exhaustive work on therapeutic medicine, that is, the treatment of ailments curable by drugs and modification of diet and lifestyle. It also covers bodily structure and function, the cause, symptoms, and prognosis of disease, and the effect of disease on the body. Physicians were urged to examine patients carefully, and to tailor treatment not just to the disease but also to the person, climate, time of year, and environment. Thus, different people with identical symptoms might receive different treatments.
Charaks compendium...author lived about 500-600 yares after Sushrutha.
Sushruta was essentially a surgeon, but Charak, practsed medivine and
shoukd be considered 'The Father of Modern Medicine'.
Charaka with his students.
Most of what is known about Indian medical science derives from this text and two others, the Susruta Samhita and the Ashtangahridaya Samhita.
Instead of appeasing deities and making sacrifices, practitioners were now looking at clinical problems and deciding how to treat them based on the specific disease. Perhaps most significant, they developed concepts of health and disease which they applied in practice.
The science of medicine became known as Ayurveda, or science of life. Just aswe now seek to explain a disease as a problem of nutrition or genetics, Ayurvedic physicians formed a medical theory that guided the way they evaluated patients and diseases.
Ayurveda proposed that human disorders arose from an imbalance of three vital substances, or humors, present in every living creature: wind, bile, and phlegm (that is, mucus). Ayurveda emphasized prevention through cleansing, exercise, diet, and good habits.
By the time Charaka was written, doctoring was recognized as a profession, and sons often followed in the footsteps of their fathers.
According to Charaka the medical profession was reserved for the highest castes (categories of a hereditary social order in South Asia). Because surgery was considered to be the work of low-caste persons such as barbers, thetext does not deal with surgery. Moreover, Indian physicians were not allowed to handle or to dissect corpses, which limited students' ways of learning about how the human body worked.
It (Charaks Compendium of Diseases) is exhaustive work on therapeutic medicine, that is, the treatment of ailments curable by drugs and modification of diet and lifestyle. It also covers bodily structure and function, the cause, symptoms, and prognosis of disease, and the effect of disease on the body. Physicians were urged to examine patients carefully, and to tailor treatment not just to the disease but also to the person, climate, time of year, and environment. Thus, different people with identical symptoms might receive different treatments.
Charaks compendium...author lived about 500-600 yares after Sushrutha.
Sushruta was essentially a surgeon, but Charak, practsed medivine and
shoukd be considered 'The Father of Modern Medicine'.
Charaka with his students.
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