When is Sushruta said to have written his Samhita?
800-600 BC. There is considerable debate about his place and date of birth among Indian scholars but the evidence points to the earliest of these dates.
Which surgeon wrote El Tasrif?
Albucasis. He was born in the Moorish city of Cordoba in 936 and died in 1013. His encyclopedic work meaning The Method, focusing on medicine and surgery, heralded the rebirth of surgery after the fall of Rome.
Which surgeon from classical times influenced medical teaching for centuries after his death to the detriment of scientific progress?
Galen. Cladius Galen (131-201 AD) was an advisor to three Roman Emperors and wrote over 100 texts. He was the undisputed authority for physicians and philosophers for centuries until his teachings were challenged in the 13th century by Theoderic of Cervia and Henri de Mondeville.
Who strongly favoured the use of cautery to control bleeding and also used it rather than the ‘cold’ knife?
Arabs. Cauterisation was known to all these races, but it was the Arabs who “practically set aside the knife” (Garrison 1912).
Who said “Primum non nocere”?
Hippocrates. The maxim “First do no harm”, is attributed to Hippocrates (ca. 460-355 BC) from Greece.
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