Susruta and ancient Indian neurosurgery

Abstract

The Golden Age of surgery in ancient India rests largely on the shoulders of Susruta, who lived sometime between 700 and 600 B.C. Susruta practiced and propagated the art of surgery at the University of Benares in that ancient city, located on the banks of the holy Ganges. His monumental treatise on surgery, Susruta Samhita, glorified him as the Father of Indian Surgery. He was the first to systematize "surgery" into two distinct "fields," including, in essence, what we know today as the field of neurosurgery. The present article elucidates the contributions of this great surgeon from a neurosurgeon's perspective.