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Comment by sachdevap | Hacker News Reader

This article really short-sells Sushruta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sushruta

The Sushruta-Samhita covers hernia surgery, C-sections, prostrate removal ... a huge range of topics.

Curiously, most of the historians from the west blatantly ignore significant contributions from the other part of the world's, for their own versions of biased history. They just conveniently sweep the other people contributions as their era of dark ages. The dark ages are for them and not for other part of the worlds.

This Brief History of Surgeons article is another proof of this biased narrative. The five volumes of The Canon of Medicine book by Ibnu Sina (Avicenna) was used as one of the main reference textbooks throughout Europe including Oxford and Cambridge University for several hundred years until 18th century [1]. It also has significant original contents on surgery that were based on the work of Galen and extend them [2]. If you think the title is familiar it is because the English word "Canon" is derived from the title of this book, in a similar fashion that the word "Algebra" is derived from the title of another book by Al-Khwarizmi.

There are many other significant medical works from Middle Eastern scholars on the subject of surgery since they are the pioneers of modern university based hospitals that are common in the world today.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_of_Medicine

[2]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32013741/

You're very right. I am guilty of not being familiar with Middle-Eastern contributions to Science, although I am familiar with extensive mathematics contributions. I'll look through this. Thank you!

Eurocentric biases are dominate across various academic disciplines. they either deny the attribution to our culture or call it plain superstitious belief.

enlightening article on devastating effect of it by śri lankan biologist:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-of-co...

then the onus of proof lies with us to prove suśruta was indeed a great surgeon, whereas we never see Europeans giving evidence to establish that Euclid was a real man.

Following book by prof. CK Raju on Euclid is a worthy read for anyone who wish to learn how Academic Imperialism works to perpetuate the aforementioned biases.

Euclid and Jesus: How and why the church changed mathematics and Christianity across two religious wars

http://ckraju.net/Euclid/

https://www.amazon.com/Euclid-Jesus-mathematics-Christianity...

please do explore other work of prof. Rāju.

Thanks for the sources. I'll be sure to go through them.

I am quite familiar with how Western history tends to misrepresent contributions of the East. It is rather unfortunate, and certainly extends beyond the realm of science.

In simple terms, colonial hangover is still there despite countless discourses over racism. Anyway, enjoy reading Prof. Raju. He has dobe a conference on the issue of Academic Imperialism, which is worth a watch on youtube.

My favorite talk by him is on Calendars.

A Tale of Two Calendars - Dr C K Raju

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpuC7Dg4e0

> It is rather unfortunate, and certainly extends beyond the realm of science.

yes, euro-centric biases extend beyond sciences. Here is one take on Kant's humorous belief about us Easterners by a professor from Singapore.

Western philosophy is racist

Academic philosophy in ‘the West’ ignores and disdains the thought traditions of China, India and Africa. This must change

https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-western-philosophical-canon-i...

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