Ayurveda
: Ancient Heritage in the Age of Globalisation
57
preparation of drugs, dietetics, etc. It is not only strange
but unfortunate to discover that studies on the historical
significance of medicine and its practice are exceedingly
rare. In place of dealing with the history of medicine these
periodicals seem to relate rather to themedicine of history
involving topics like methods of sterilization in the
Atharvaveda
(Roy 1966); anatomy in Vedic literature (Roy
1967); methods of contraception in ancient India (Dash
and Basu 1968); Caraka and Sushruta on sleep
(Chattopadhyaya 1969); digestion and metabolism in
Ayurveda (Nath 1969); mental health (Verma 1974);
emergency medicine in ancient India (Singh and Bajpai
1980) and methodology of science and Caraka (Sekhavat
1984). Even in the proceedings of the Indian History
Congress the theme has been repeated (Mitra 1968).
The outlook of the vernacular journals on the history of
medicine is also not different.
Among the works prepared on the South Indian
systems of Siddha and other medicines the dominance of
technical studies continues unabated. Two such works on
Yogic and Tantric systems and folk medicine have already
been referred to above (Jaggi : 1973a; 1973b). Of these
the former only presents scientific introduction to these
systems without discussing historical development of
Yoga in India. The latter is essentially a work of
anthropology interesting enough in content, but again
