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Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/29

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CHAPTER II

The Ayurvedic Period

The Hindu System of medicine methodised and arranged on a rational basis.We now alight upon a period when we find the Hindu system of medicine methodised and arranged on a rational basis, with a scientific terminology.

The two great works of this period are the Charaka and the Susruta. In them we find the study of the subject to have made a distinct advance and to have been evolved out of the chaotic state it was in during the Vedic period. Of the two, the Charaka is by far the more ancient.[1]

The Charaka and the Susruta.There must have been a wide gap between the age of the A. V. and that of the Charaka—an interval of probably a thousand years or more.
  1. Cf: "The theological doctrine of the nature of disease indicated its means of cure. For Hippocrates was reserved the great glory of destroying them both, replacing them by more practical and