Metallic substances in Indian medical practice recorded in 1813

by Dr. A. Raman araman@csu.edu.au

(Continued from last fortnight)

Section 2 refers to metallic substances used in Indian medical practice. Section 3 explains the medicines of the Tamil Materia Medica, based on a Siddha medical text Agattiya Vythiya Murai 500, also used by the people of Telugu country and Muslims, which he thinks will be of value to European practitioners. Section 4 includes details of medications and their suggested doses from the Tamil medical practice. Section 5 includes a list of weights and measures used by Indian physicians, with equivalents of apothecaries’ weights and measures supplied: e.g. 2.5 grains of dry paddy (including the husk) = 1 Apothecaries’ Grain. These pages also include details on how native medical practitioners write prescriptions pertaining to water extract (infusion), kashayam (decoction), thazham, thuvalai (liniment), lehiyam (electuary), choornam (powder), mathirai (pill), and kalimbu (plaster).

Ainslie subsequently explains the principles and practices followed by native Indian physicians, particularly of the Tamil country, in making five types of mercury-based compounds. He also indicates how each of these mercury compounds is being used in the treatments of different diseases. In brief, he indicates rassapuspam and rasacarpooram for venereal afflictions, scurfy ulcers, and leprosies. Saadilingam to be used with specified masses of the bark of Calotropis gigantea (then known as Asclepias Gigantea, Asclepiadaceae), charcoal, Piper nigrum (Piperaceae), and the juice of Gossypium herbaceum (Malvaceae), well-ground and the mix on hardening to be smoked for eye disorders. Saviram is prepared with alum, nitre (KNO3), iron sulphate (FeSO4), and sal ammoniac (NH4Cl) and given to treat asthma and phlegmatic problems in microquantities. Rasasenduram is used mixed with copper sulphate and the root of Amaranthus campestris (Amaranthaceae) to treat foul ulcers.

Part II of the book includes details on materials (a little more than 500, grouped under seven sections based on their economic contexts) used by the people of the Tamil land in the 18th Century. He provides impressive details and, most critically, he supplements details with local names either in original languages or in transliterated Roman letters. For example, in his notes on asbestos, his comments start from Pliny the elder (23-79 AD) until Thunberg (1743-1828) to how the Japanese found a use for a fine quality asbestos in making fabrics, offering fascinating reading.

In pages 270-271, Ainslie provides remarks on rice cultivation in the Tamil country. His brief remarks start with a comparison of Tennant’s notes on agriculture in Bengal (p. 270): “On this coast (Coromandel), from being exposed to an opposite rainy season, the harvest months are necessarily different from those of upper Hindoostan, as are also several of the articles that are cultivated; …”.

In this section, he provides worthwhile remarks on the cultivation practices of Oryza sativa and related water-management practices in the Tamil land, referring particularly to the white-grain variety Samba and the red-grain variety Kaar.

Ainslie’s book contains details of materials of medical use in India generically and in the Tamil country in particular in the first part, which is referred to as Catalogue I and captioned The Materia Medica of Hindoostan. Catalogue II, captioned Agriculturist’s Nomenclature, is a bibliographic enumeration of materials of general economic importance (e.g. asbestos), although it periodically alludes to materials of medical importance (e.g. mercury, and other metals such as Au, Zn, Ag).

Footnote: The earliest formal effort in this direction, i.e. producing a catalogue of medically relevant materials and their derivatives, was by John Fleming of the Bengal Medical Service. Another materia medica of 19th Century India was The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works (1877, Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta) by Udoy Chand Dutt, a medical officer of the Bengal Civil Medical Service. Baghvat Sinhjee (Bhagvat Sinhjee Sangram Sinhjee Bahadur, the Maharaja of Gondal, Rajkot, 1865-1944; r: 1869-1944, the only ruler of a princely state in pre-independent India, who qualified formally in medicine with M.B.C.M. and F.R.C.P. from Scotland) wrote A Short History of Aryan Medical Service in 1896 that included a chapter ‘The Indian Materia Medica’. A more comprehensive volume, Materia Medica of India and their Therapeutics was authored by Khory and Katrak and was published in Bombay in 1903. Krishnarao Mangeshrao Nadkarni published his massive tome The Indian Materia Medica in 1954, which has currently undergone several reprints and revisions. Whitelaw Ainslie’s Materia Medica of Hindoostan (1813), which appeared in Madras three years after Fleming published his volume, is more detailed and comprehensive than Fleming’s in terms of quantity and quality of information supplied.

(Concluded)

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