A Critical Appraisal of Ancient Surgical Instruments

Abstract

Sushruta is known as ‘Father of Surgery’ for his valuable contributions in almost every aspect of surgery. As a surgeon, he has described various operative techniques in detail along with pre and post-operative care. He has given due importance to surgical instruments and has few chapters for it. While, counting qualities of surgeon he states that surgeon should have sharp instruments. This itself indicates importance of instruments. This paper briefly describes various surgical instruments described in Sushruta Samhita with possible modern co-relates.

Keywords: shastra, yantra, surgical instruments