The Science and the Art of Indian Medicine

By G. Srinivasa Murti (1887 - unknown).

196 Pages | Softcover | Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar | ISBN: 8170590337.

Many and varied have been the objections that have been raised, from time to time, against the recognition and encouragement by the State of the indigenous systems of medicine like the Ayurveda, the Siddha and the Unani; these objections have always been challenged by exponents of these systems as well as by others interested in their promotion. The resulting controversy has sometimes been mild and sometimes wild. Some of the objections are trivial, while others are vital. And round none has the fire of controversy raged so fiercely as on the central question whether these Indian systems of medicine are scientific or not. The object of this memorandum is to view things from a scientific standpoint and stimulate scientific discussion on a subject which, it is clear, can now be neither ignored nor shelved.

From Chapter 'Ayurveda as an Art - The Past and the Present' (p. 195):

" Hence it is that, in Indian Medicine, it has always been considered necessary that the training of the future physician should provide not only for the study of Medicine in all its branches, as as to equip him or her with the capacity to have proper expert orientation to the problems of health and ill-health but also for the study of the Humanities, the Classics, as will enable him to have the proper humanist-orientation to Life and its Vital human problems. In other words, the ancient scheme of studies was so ordered as to give to the world great physicians, who were not only great scientists, but also great humanists. "