The World's First Cosmetic Surgeon- Sushrutha

SHUSHRUTHA—World’s First Plastic Surgeon
--Crest Jewel of Indian Medicine and Surgery

Hippocrates, popular as ‘the Father of Medicine’, was a noted physician in ancient Greece who lived by about 425 B.C. By his devotion and dedicated service to people in Greece he is celebrated as having saved hundreds of lives in Greece from the ravages of an epidemic like plague. It was he who laid down the professional code of conduct for a practicing doctor, known as the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ by which a doctor entering the profession takes an oath to live with a sprit of self sacrifice and devoted service to society in need of medical care and attention.

Preceding Hippocrates by more then one hundred years, there lived in India a great doctor by name Shushrutha [a contemporary of the Buddha] who was a sage-like medical marvel. He was acknowledged as the most authoritative in medicine and surgery. He imparted the following exhortations to his students on the eve of their entering the noble profession of medicine and surgery:
• Dedicate yourself entirely to helping the sick, even ignoring the perils of your life.
• Never harm the sick, not even in thought
• Endeavor always to update and perfect your knowledge
• Treat no woman except in the presence of her husband.
• Observe all the rules of good dress and good conduct
• When you are with a patient, think of only the suffering of the patient both in word and thought
• Never speak to the patient about the chances of his death
• Take these pledges invoking the presence of God. May God help you if you follow these rules of conduct. Otherwise, May He be against you.
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The Hippocratic Oath, in addition to the principles enunciated by Shushrutha, mentions also the ethics about the remuneration of a doctor. However, remuneration of the doctor was not a problem for Shushurutha. Our ancients considered knowledge as not an individual property and that remuneration was totally secondary to service. According to Shushrutha, doctors should give priority and preference to service of the sick and needy in keeping with the motto ‘Service to man is service to God’


Shushrutha wrote a wonderful medical treatise known as “Shushrutha Samhita”—a work while acquainting us with his ideas about medicine and surgical methods, also shows how far ahead of the rest of the world India was in the field of medical knowledge of those days. This is the only medical treatise which has influenced medical practice all over the world for centuries. Precepts of Ayurveda and Shushrutha had spread to the known civilized world like Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. It is now well established that even in the 6th century B.C. there was regular exchange of all branches of knowledge among learned men from different parts of the world with Persia. In the 11th Century A.D ‘Shushrutha Samhitha’ was translated into Persian and Arabic.

The Shushrutha Samhitha is a monumental medical treatise which deals exhaustively with all aspects of medicine. The treatise consists of 120 chapters compiled in 5 volumes. There are descriptions of 700 medicines, 3,000surgical instruments and thousands of disease processes with their symptoms and treatment. According to Shushrutha “Only the union of medicine and surgery constitutes a complete doctor. The doctor who lacks the knowledge of one of these branches is like a bird with only one wing”. The Samhita deals with almost all the surgical operations on the body except on the chest. As most of these operations cannot be done without the use of general anesthesia, Shushrutha deals with them as well. In fact, a Sanskrit composition called ‘Bhoja Prabandha’ written by Pandit Ballala in the 11century A.D. describes an operation on the King of Bhoja where a tumour of the brain was removed by drilling a hole in the King’s head. During the operation, a drug known as ‘Sammohini’ [as recommended by Shushrutha ‘] was used to make the king unconscious and another by name ‘Sanjeevini’ was used to bring him back to consciousness.

The meticulous aseptic and antiseptic principles of surgery, described by Shushrutha, were unknown to the Western world till about the 19th century. It was only in the year 1890 that these principles were discovered in Europe when the English surgeon Lord Lister [after whom Listerine is named] demonstrated antiseptic surgery for the first time. This has been considered a milestone in Western surgery. Even the wearing of clean clothes by the Surgeons was accepted in Europe only in the 19th century. Before that, the surgeons used to wear the same dirty gown throughout their lives as a mark of seniority and experience.


It may surprise many to learn that Shushrutha was the world’s first plastic surgeon. In fact, surgery started in India, a country which performed all modern surgical operations like Caesarean, cataract extraction, renal stone removal, brain surgery etc. The word ‘plastics’ in plastic surgery derives its name from the Greek word ‘plastika’ which means ‘to build up’. Shushrutha specialized in building up noses, known as Rhinoplasty. In those days, flashing of swords during a battle was common and people lost their noses easily during a fight. Then they would rush to Shushrutha for treatment. He would take strips of flesh from some part of the body and mend their noses with them. Occasionally a man would come to him with a split nose for treatment. Shushrutha would fashion a new lip for him. Such surgery was not available anywhere in the world for quite a few centuries except in India.
In the Mysore war of 1792, Tippu Sultan’s soldiers captured a Maratha cart driver called Cowasji, who was in the British army, as a prisoner of war and cut off his nose. A year later, a native Vaidya from Poona who practiced medicine according to Shushrutha reconstructed Cowasji’s nose in the presence of two British doctors --Thomas Curso and James Hindlay. An illustrated account of this rare medical feat was published in the Madras Gazette which described the operation as ‘not uncommon in India and has been practiced in India from time immemorial’. In fact, this article was reproduced in the Gentleman magazine of London in issue dated October 1794.
From time immemorial Indian practice of Indian medicine and surgery always kept its motto as ‘Service to man is service to God’. This truth is corroborated by Ancient History of India wherein we see many kings and emperors who ruled the country having given utmost importance to medical treatment to the common man. According to the Girnar rock edict, Emperor Ashoka who ruled the country in the 3rd century B.C. is said to have constructed several big hospitals in the state, both for men and animals. . A century later, King Dutta Gamani is said to have listed among his good deeds the founding of 18 hospitals for the poor and needy. Treatment was equal and common to all the citizens without discrimination whatsoever. Ancient India considered practice of medicine and surgery as an adoration of God through service to humanity. This was the philosophy which it delivered and which acted as the healing touch.

B.M.N. Murthy





ARTICLE NO. 541--SHUSHRUTHA, World's First Plastic Surgeon
Created: Friday, November 27, 2009 9:16 PM