Cataract surgery
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Did Sushruta perform the world's first cataract operation, or did Babylon or Greece and Rome get there first?
Disputed: evidence incompleteMedicine & health
Indian claim
The Sushruta Samhita describes using a curved needle to push a clouded lens out of the line of sight, the operation called couching, and gives aftercare.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- The Sushruta text gives a detailed procedure, including where to insert the needle and how to care for the eye afterwards.
- Some ophthalmologists who have studied the Sanskrit, such as Roy, Mehra and Deshpande in the British Journal of Ophthalmology (1975), argue the method may have been closer to removing the lens than simply pushing it down; others still read it as couching.
Commonly credited to
The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BCE) sets fees and penalties for eye surgery with a bronze lancet, which some read as couching. The Roman writer Celsus described couching clearly in about 30 CE.
Evidence for the other claim
- The Hammurabi code mentions eye operations but never names or describes one, so it is not proof of couching.
- The eye chapters are in the Uttaratantra, a later section of the Sushruta Samhita; the oldest surviving manuscript is from 878 CE, so the passage may be roughly as old as Celsus's account.
What historians and scientists say
Sushruta's text contains one of the oldest clear descriptions of cataract surgery. Because the dates of both the Indian and Roman texts are uncertain, historians do not agree on who described it first, and couching may have spread along trade routes.