India Has Repository On Ancient History of Medicine
NEW DELHI, (IANS) – The National Institute of Indian Medical Heritage (NIIMH), Hyderabad, maintains a medico-historical library, which contains 10,384 books on different aspects and branches of history of medicine.
The collection has several classical texts of Ayush systems and European medicine, which include some early editions.
This library possesses 285 manuscripts (palm leaf/paper) out of which 173 belong to ayurveda, 106 to unani system of medicine and six to the Siddha system, he added.
The institute also maintains a digital repository of 2,700 medical manuscripts and 1,335 rare books collected from different manuscript repositories, state museums, academic institutions, libraries and personal collections across south India, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. Out of these 2,700 digital manuscripts, 1,335 are on ayurveda, 542 on unani, 598 to siddha, 49 on yoga and 176 on other topics.
Further, 1,679 manuscripts/rare books have been digitalized under the project entitled “Survey, Cataloguing and Digitalized inventory of Medical Manuscripts of Eastern India (Odisha, West Bengal, and Bihar) and 770 manuscripts have been digitalized under the project entitled “Survey, Cataloguing and Digitalized inventory of Medical Manuscripts of North-East India”.
The Central Council for Research in Siddha has also deciphered ancient Siddha literatures originally available in Tamil prose and translated them to Tamil and English language. Various national-level institutes and Research Councils under Ministry of Ayush publish journals on regular basis for wider dissemination of research outcomes.
