that they were in reality contemporaneous, or nearly so, the conclusion we are led to is, that after the Andras, a period of confusion ensued, during which different parts of India were possessed by different races, of whom nothing further is known. If the Yavans be Greeks, it would, no doubt, be surprising to find eight of their monarchs reigning after A. D. 436; and the Kaikala Yavans would be still more embarrassing. They may possibly be Mussulmans.* Immediately after all this confusion comes a list of dynasties reigning in different kingdoms; and among them is a brief notice of "the Guptas of Magada, along the Ganges, to Prayága." Now, it has been put out of all dispute, by coins and inscriptions, that a race, some of whose names ended. in Gupta, did actually reign along the Ganges from the fourth or fifth to the seventh or eighth century. There is, therefore, some truth mixed with these crudities, but it cannot be made available without external aid; and as nearly the same account is given in the other historical Puránas, we have nothing left but to give up all further attempts at the chronology of Magada. The æra of Vicramaditya in Málwa, which begins fifty-seven years before Christ, and is in * Professor Wilson, Vishnu Purána, p. 474-481. Dr. Mills, translation from the Allahabad column, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, vol. iii. p. 257.; and other papers in that Journal, quoted by Professor Wilson. CHAP. III. Eras of Vicramaditya and Salivá hana. BOOK III. constant use to this day all over Hindostan; and CHAP. IV. MEDICINE. THE earliest medical writers extant are Charaka and Susruta. We do not know the date of either of them; but there is a commentary on the second and later of the two, which was written in Cashmír in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and does not seem to have been the first.* These authors were translated into Arabic, and probably soon after that nation turned its attention to literature. The Arab writers openly acknowledge their obligations to the medical writers of India, and place their knowledge on a level with that of the Greeks. It helps to fix the date of their becoming known to the Arabs, to find that two Hindús, named Manka and Saleh, were physicians to Hárún al Rashíd in the eighth century.† Their acquaintance with medicines seems to have been very extensive. We are not surprised at their knowledge of simples, in which they gave early lessons to Europe, and more recently taught *Most of the information in this chapter is taken from an essay on the antiquity of the Indian materia medica, by Dr. Royle, Professor of King's College, London. The additions are from Ward's Hindoos (vol. ii. p. 337, &c.), and Mr. Coats, Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. iii. p. 232. + Professor Dietz, quoted by Dr. Royle, p. 64. CHAP. IV. BOOK us the benefit of smoking datura in asthma, and the use of cowitch against worms: their chymical skill is a fact more striking and more unexpected. They knew how to prepare sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and muriatic acid; the oxide of copper, iron, lead (of which they had both the red oxide and litharge), tin, and zinc; the sulphuret of iron, copper, mercury, antimony, and arsenic; the sulphate of copper, zinc, and iron; and carbonates of lead and iron. Their modes of preparing those substances seem, in some instances, if not in all, to have been peculiar to themselves.* Their use of these medicines seems to have been very bold. They were the first nation who employed minerals internally, and they not only gave mercury in that manner, but arsenic and arsenious acid, which were remedies in intermittents. They have long used cinnabar for fumigations, by which they produce a speedy and safe salivation. Their surgery is as remarkable as their medicine, especially when we recollect their ignorance of anatomy. They cut for the stone, couched for the cataract, and extracted the foetus from the womb, and in their early works enumerate no less than 127 sorts of surgical instruments. But their instruments were probably always rude. present they are so much so, that, though very At * See Dr. Royle, p. 44., who particularly refers to the processes for making calomel and corrosive sublimate. + Dr. Royle, p. 49. successful in cataract, their operations for the CHAP. stone are often fatal. They have long practised inoculation; but still many lives were lost from small-pox, until the introduction of vaccination. The Hindú physicians are attentive to the pulse and to the state of the skin, of the tongue, eyes, &c., and to the nature of the evacuations; and they are said to form correct prognostics from the observation of the symptoms. But their practice is all empirical, their theory only tending to mislead them. Nor are they always judicious in their treatment in fevers, for instance, they shut up the patient in a room artificially heated, and deprive him, not only of food, but drink. They call in astrology and magic to the aid of their medicine, applying their remedies at appropriate situations of the planets, and often accompanying them with mystical verses and charms. Many of these defects probably belonged to the art in its best days, but the science has no doubt declined; chemists can conduct their preparations successfully without having the least knowledge of the principles by which the desired changes are effected; physicians follow the practice of their instructors without inquiry; and surgery is so far neglected, that bleeding is left to the barber, bonesetting to the herdsman, and every man is ready to administer a blister, which is done with the juice of the euphorbium, and still oftener with the actual cautery. IV. |