in ancient times. Their comprehensive character and superior merit probably led, in course of time, to the extinction of the manuscripts of authors who had preceded them. Succeeding writers and practitioners came to regard these works as of divine origin and beyond the criticism of man. Accordingly they dared not add to or amend what these ancient sages had recorded regarding the general principles of medicine and special pathology, but confined their labours to making better arranged and more compendious compilations for the use of students, and to explaining or dilating upon the texts of Charaka and Susruta, while in the matter of surgical practice, there has been a gradual decline in knowledge and experience till at the present day an educated surgeon of the Dhanvantariya sampraáya is a phenomenon unknown in Hindustan.
The next compilation on Hindu Medicine is said to be the Ashtanga-hridaya-sanhitá by Sinha Gupta Sena Vágbhatta. This work is a mere compilation from Charaka and Susruta methodically arranged. It contains little or nothing that is original or that is not to be found in the works from which it was compiled. This circumstance, together with the fact of Vágbhatta being always mentioned by later writers as an old authority, seems to show that his work was compiled not long after those of Charaka and Susruta. Like these two writers he does not mention the use of mercury in the treatment of diseases.
Next in point of age, are the two works called respectively the Nidána by Mádhava Kara and Chakradatta-sangraha by Chakrapani Datta. The first is a concise treatise on the causes symptoms and prognosis of diseases, compiled from various authors, and has been used from a long time as the text-book on pathology by students of Hindu Medicine throughout India. Professor Wilson is of opinion that "the Arabians of the eighth century cultivated the Hindu works on Medicine before those of the Greeks; and that the Charaka, the Susruta, and the treatise called Nidana were translated and studied by the Arabians in the days of Harun and Mansur (A. D. 773), either from the originals, or more probably from translations made at a still earlier period into the language of Persia."
