Bull. Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XIX. pp. 63 to 70

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MEDICAL LIBRARIESWITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIA (UPTO 18 C)

C. GOVINDA REDDY*

ABSTRACT

Ancient medical knowledge was communicated orally fromteacher to pupil. The discovery of script in the excavations in Indusvalley and Babilonia made clear regarding the existence of knowledgeof medical information in the second and first millennium before thechrlst. Egyptian papyri and Edwin Smith Papyrus. Clay tablets in theAssyrian library are some of the ancient medical literature availablefrom the West. Samhitas. Bowers manuscript are some of the availablemedical literature from Ancient India. Travellers from China and othercountries described Universities. University libraries where medicalsections were existed in ancient India. Arab Physicians used to studyand write medical texts for their students. In the medieval period.Churches used to collect medical books in the West. In India. temples.monasteries used to maintain medical libraries to educate students.Kings used to patronise scholars. physicians, and encouraged them towrite books on medicine in Indian languages.

\.,

INTRODUCTIONThe Art of Medicine had its ori-

gins in the dim antiquity of Neolithicand Prehlstoric Human Society. OurIndian Medical classics (CharakaSamhita and Sushruta Samhita) aswell as the Greek Physician Hippo-crates 'Father of Medicine' allude atthat early epoch. to 'The AncientMedicine'. At the very beginningof Medical Practice, it is probable

that all knowledge and procedurewere communicated orally from Patri-arch to Juniors or from teacher topupil. But as the volume of know-ledge became increased and diverse,there was temptation to record andpreserve it for successive generationsand to transport from place to placewithout tha necessity of a learnedteacher (probably an old age too)having to walk long distance or sail

*'Librarian. Indian Institute of History of Medicine. Hyderabad.

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over seas or cross over high ranges.It is generally stated that writing wasintroduced into India from Mesopota-mia in the 6th or 8th century beforeChrist. Further, the discovery ofEgpytian and of the famous clay tab-lets in Babylonian excavations oughtto be sufficient to remove any vesti-ges of doubt rt::~:;rding the existenceof knowle dqe reduced to writing andof the international inter-change ofmedical information in the secondand first millennium before Christ.

ORIGINThe earliest medical texts now

available in their ancient and originalform, are the Egyptian Papyri (socalled because they are written onpapyrus leaf). Of these, the EdwinSmith Papyrus (1600 B.C.) is a roll15 ft. long written on both sides in22 columns, containing 1500 lines ofscript. Its chief interest lies in itssurgical case reports. The Eben; Pa-pyrus (1550 B.C.) has 110 columns(pages) containing nearly 2300 lines.It was believed by Eqvptoloqis t s tobe one at tne sacred books (Herma-tic book of Thoth) supposed to havebeen lost. This text is a completeEncyclopedia, written in several dia-lects, and containing a variety ofmedical and allied subjects beginningwith incentations giving lists ofdiseases, and 875 recipes and citingcase reports. It even includes sec-tions on Parasites, Turnouts. diseasesof Ear and Eye and pediatrics. Theearliest of the Egyptian medical pap-

Bull. Ind. lnst, Hist. Med. Vol. XIX

yri assigned to 2,;00 B.C. is devotedto Gynaecology (The Gardinar Papy-rus). The first proof found ill 1849shows the existence of medical libra-ries in antiquity started in the worldin 1849, when about 10,000 Assy-rian and Babylonian clay tablets,forming the \,jreat library of Assurba-nipal (7th cent. B.C ) were unearthed.Out of which 3000 tablets were rela-ted with different sciences and outof these nearly 800 tablets deal withmedicine.

DEVELOPMENT OFMEDICAL LIBRARIES

History tells us about the repea-ted destruction and burning of thegreat library at Alexendria, collectedby the enthusiasm and energy of thelovers of learning, the Pto!ymeys.The loss to civilisation and to medi-cine in particular, must have beenincalculable. The bridge betweentha past and the succeeding ageswes complerelv blown up, literallyinto atoms A Scott's article on'libraries of Ancient Rome' in rela-tion to medical science (Athens: VIII503 Dec. 3S) ouqht to stimulatesoma Oriental Scholar or Librarian togive us similar studies on the medicallibraries of ancient India.

The evidences discovered so farare additional arguments for morethorough and vigorous search foreither traces of the libraries or therecord of such libraries - bigger orsmaller earlier or later than those that

Origin and Development of Medical Libraries-Reddy 65

have actually and accidently beenbroughl to light. in some parts of theworld.

IN ANCIENT ERAWould it not be considered rash

if one were to dogmatize that therewere no medical libraries in AncientIndia on the slender negative as inEgypt or Assyria evidence that nomedical collections of hoary anti-quity have been discovered in thisCountiv? Charaka tells us in hisSamhita that all the pupils of Atreya,Preceptor of Agnivesa and his pupils,studying medicine in the Universityof Takshasi!a. centuries before theinvasion of Alexander wrote treatises(corresponding to the graduationthesis of modern European and Ame-rican Universitles). Only recently,one of these treatises. in its originalform was luckily identified in theTanjore Manuscript Library. This raremanuscript has been printed by theCalcutta University and is calledBhela Samhita, because Bhela is theauthor of the book. The late PanditGanganath Jha had drawn the atten-tion of the Oriental Scholars to somemedical texrs and treatises mentionedby name yet undiscovered. An Anci-ent I ndian Medical Manuscript writ-ten on Bhurja leaves and belongingto 4th cent. A D. was found amongthe exc avations in Central Asia. Afascimile edition of it is available forr; ference libraries and wealthy col-lectors. while a cheap edition is alsonow sold ell Lahore. The medical

manuscript contains many recipes endis cailed 'Bower Manuscript'. Nepaland Kashmir still possess many anci-ent and medieval manuscripts andmany more similar collections may beexpected to have been collected andpreserved as precious treasures in thecapitals of Chandragupta Maurya andKanishka Gupta Ernpsrors, in theNorth and in the Courts of the Pand-yas, Pallavas and Cholas in theSouth,

Chinese visitors to I ndia in the7th cen. leaves us in no doubt regar-ding the splendid libraries that wereattached to the great University ofDhanyakataka on the bank of Krishnain the heyday of tne Andhra Empirein the 1st and 2nd cen. A.D. Itwould appear that this University(and specially its Library) was takenas the model for many Tibetan andChinese centres of learning.

Both It-sing and Huen-Tsanghava described with admiration andawe the Librarv of the Nalanda Uni-versity, Foreign visitors came toIndia to visit various centres of lear-ning. to see the collections of booksto study some of them and if possibleto copy the most valuable of the trea-tises; for the benefit of other coun-tries and people. There are many suchmedical books now in the Far East,the originals in India having been lostor destroyed. The West also derivedsome benefit from the Indian libra-ries and Me dical manuscripts. Indian

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Medical men and Indian Medical trea-tises found an honoured place andencouragement in the Court of Bag-dad. Indian Medical texts were trans-lated into Arabic during the reign ofHarun- al- Rashid The impact withthe Indian medicine gave the Arabianmedicine a new stimulus. We do notyet know much, th s Indian medicineinfluenced the minds and practices ofthe great Arab Physicians of Cairoand Cordova. A detailed and com-parative study of the texts of Rhazesand (If Avicenna may yeild interestingclues. European writers on the His-tory of Medicine refer only to thepreservation of the Greek and Romantexts by Byzantain and Arab ScholarPhysicians. The Byzantian and ArabPhysicians rendered another greatservice to medicine, namely. theypassed on the treatises and wisdomof the East to Europe submerged indarkness at that time. Albiruni whovisited India in the early part of the11th cent. refers to medical classicsof India. Marco Polo mentions thatthe Chinese Emperor Kubla Khan gotas presents from Indian physiciansthe medical books and rare medicines.

IN MEDIEVAL ERAIn the medieval period. in Europe,

the Church. the Clergy and monaste-ries collected medical literature.Manv handsome collections havebequeathed to the cathedral libraries.These libi aries of medieval Europewere small in extent. seldom exceed-ing 100 or more volumes. Lists of

Bull. Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XIX

books found in some of the import-ant libraries have been published byProf. Sudhoff and his pupils. Simi-larly. in India. the priestly orders ofthe Buddhists, the Jains and Shaivesand their own private collections ofbooks on medicine. One of theJain Acharyas at the Court of RashtraKuta King, composed a Jain treatise,now avaiiable as manuscript Kalva-nakaraka. The Hindu temples ofTamilnadu and Jain monasteries ofMysore regions were not only admi-nistering food, water and medicinesto the needy and the sick but alsotrained youths to give medical reliefand had collections of old classics aswell as 'note books for reference andstudy.

In addition, there were the courtsof the discorning kings who patroni-zed scholars and physicians. Whathappened to the many collections ofbooks gathered together by the vari-ous Kingdoms and Royal houses is amystery, if not a tragedy. Among thenine gems of every important Indiancourt was a Dhanwantari. King Bhojaof Ohara himself wrote a book 'Cha-rucharya' (Regimen of life) whichresembles in its title and probably inits contents. a book published inEurope in the 12th century. under theseal of the medical school of Salernoand read widely all over Europe forthree or four centuries. There werealso the Pandit physicians of RoyalCourts and Temples and the heredi-tary families of physicians. All those

Origin and Development of Medical Libraries-Reddy

had their own private collections andsome of them kept note books recor-ding their experiences of diseases andextracts from their readings. Para-hita Samhita, a manuscript in theMadras Oriental Library, written by adescendent of a famous family ofphysicians of Andhra Desh in the14th or 15th cen. is an example ofthe learned works composed by here-ditary ohysiciens. From the house ofhereditary physician we can get anumber of medical manuscripts con-taininq many prescriptions, of indige-nous origin.

During the reign of the MoghulEmperors at Delhi, a special attentionwas paid to gather books. Baber wasa man of letters. Humayun was abooklover and had a good library.Akbar the great had a magnificent lib-rary, which was enriched by his suc-cessors. One can not help regrettingthat we have no catalogue of the lib-rary of the great Moghuls In a famousscene where tobacco was first bro-ught before Akbar the great. thecourt scholars, botanists and physi-cians are said to have consultedbooks on the subject, and given theiropinion. Likewise, the Mahammdank.ings of the Deccan had collectionsof medical books written by ArabianPersian physicians and also the worksof Galen and his commentators,

The medical school library atParis began in 1369. St. Bartholo-mew's Hospital had a small Medical

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librafy in 1422 and Royal Hospital in1551. The Bibliotheque Nationale,which as an extensive medical col-lection, was founded in 1518, as wasthat of the Royal College of Physi-cians in London. The Bodleian Me-dical Library was founded in 1602;the Biblioteca delia R. AccademiaNazionale dei Linsei in 1602; thePreussiche Staatsbibliothek in 1659;the Library of the Royal College ofPhysicians of Edinburg in 1681; theLibrary of the Royal Faculty of Physi-cians and Surgeons of Glassgow in1698. In U.S.A. the first medicalinstitutional libraries were the Penn-sylvania Hospital (1762). the Collegeof Physicians of Philadelphia (1788),and the New York Hospital (1796.)

The European physicians whocame to India in the 16th and 17thcenturies had to get their own booksand some 0' them were very learnedmen. with large libraries. Garcia DaOrts. the first writer of an Indo-European Medical treatises "TheColloquies on simples of India" andthe proprietor of the Island of Bombayhad a fine Library in his house atGoa and later at Bombay. Manucci,the Italian physician mentions thathe learned the art of medicine mainlyfrom books. Goa had a good collec-tion of European medical books ofthe 16th and 17th centuries. Whenthe East India Company started tosend surgeons to India. they sentnot only chests of surgery and medi-cine but also books. pharmacopoeias

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etc. Fort St. George had a libraryeven at the close of the 17th century.It would be very interesting to get alist of books on medicine then avai-lable in Madras.

With the failing of in the generallevel of Sanskrit learning from the12th or 13th century onwards, panditswere attempting to Annotate theolder Sanskrit texts in simple easySanskrit prose. Later, the Sanskrittexts had to be annotated in Indianlanguages. Ultimately, many of theSanskrit originals ceased to be read.Learned and experienced physicianswrote compendiums in the Indianlanguages for the ordinary man toread understand and practise. Thusarose large collections of books onall branches of medicine in many ofthe Indian languages. Collections ofsuch books existed all over thecountry in the 17th and 18th centu-ries. The local kings and heriditaryphysicians had such collections withthem and these libraries served asteaching Institutions.

Bull. Ind. lnst. Hist. Mea Vol. XIX

From the end of the 18th cen-tury, with the revival of interest inAncient Indian culture and classicsthe collection of the old texts andmanuscripts was taken up as a sacredduty. European savants who readand appreciated the treasures ofknowledge available in India in theSanskrit Literature and lauguage andalso in the modern Indian languages,began to search or encourage thesearch for manuscripts in variousparts of the Libraries of country.Thus came into existence the greatRoyal Asiatic Society of Bengal, theBombay Branch of the Royal Societyetc. The ancient and medievel libra-ries in Indian Slates were alsoexamined more carefully with a viewto identify and preserve rare andprecious copies. One of the tasks ofthe librarians, medical men and scho-lars is to prepare a complete andcomprehensive catalogue of all theavailable Indian Medical manuscripts(not only in Sanskrit but also in otherIndian language) scattered all overthe world and of the early additionsof books in India also.

REFERENCES1. Hand book of Medical Library practice 2nd ed Chicago,

American Medical Library Association, 1956, pp 1-8.

2. Castiglioni. Arturo: A History of Medicine. London, Routledge &Kegan Poxul & Co., 1947, pp. 6-9.

3 Lynn, Thorndike: A Glimpse of Seventeenth Century Medicine,Ann Med. Hist. 5 (6), 1934, pp. 124-127.

4 Mettler, Calili ac: Hist of Medicine, Philadelphia, TheBlakistan Company, 1947, pp. 2-8.

Origin and Development of Medical Libreries=Re ddy 69

5. New Berger, Max: History of Medicine, Vol. I, Land, HenryFrowde, 1910, pp. 1-19.

6. Osler, William: Acqwanimities Land, H. K. Lewis & Co., 1939, pp. 209-215.

7. Sigerist. Henry E.: A History of Medicine: Premitive and ArchaicMedicine, Vol. II, New York. Oxford Press, 1950, pp, 28-29.

8. Subba Reddy, O.V.: Medical Literature in India, Ancient, Medieval andModern (Dr. A. Lakshmipathi Oration delivered at the Annual Meetingof Indian Academy of Medical Sciences, Madras on 28th Jan 1974) Ann.Indian Acad. Med. Science, 11(1), 1975, pp, 1-3.

9. Thornton, John L: Medical Librarianship, Lab, Grosby Lockwood& Sons Ltd,1963, pp, 1-4.

70 Bull. Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XI X

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