88 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [vol. ix 



Medical Service. 



In India as in all oriental and uncivilized countries the practice of 

 medicine is usually associated with charms and spells to drive away the 

 evil spirits so much so that among the densely ignorant and illiterate 

 they have such a firm belief in the efficacy of such means of cure 

 that it is difficult to get them to submit to proper treatment. 

 The bettering of such conditions as these must surely be one of the 

 things that any Government who has any regard for its subjects would 

 seek to do. In the days of the company rule, hospitals were established 

 towards the end of the i8th century, primarily for the servants of the 

 company but others could be treated also. In these days the Government 

 maintains out of the public funds an efficient medical service, the su- 

 perior officers of which must all be qualified practitioners in Britain. 

 The Government provides medical colleges for the proper education of 

 the Indians, and public hospitals and dispensaries under the supervision 

 of the superior officers to which all classes may go for treatment. 

 These officers are generally skilled surgeons as well as medical men, in 

 fact they have to be if they would be of the greatest service to the people ; 

 they certainly can get all the practice they want. The people are real- 

 izing more and more the benefits of hospital treatments and are coming 

 in ever increasing numbers so that now something like 30,000 000 people 

 are treated annually. The Government has not been unmindful of the 

 sanitary condition of the people and in this line probably their most 

 important achievement has been in the introduction of waterworks 

 systems. All the large towns in India have complete waterworks 

 systems that would put to shame most, if not all the systems in this 

 country. These have caused a very great decrease in the epidemics 

 that used to work such frightful havoc among the people. 



Education. 



Among the Hindus their brahmins or priests carried on a system of 

 education in oriental literature from time immemorial, but it was con- 

 fined to this one caste. The priest gathered a number of pupils about 

 him and they always accompanied him and learned orally from him the 

 stories contained in the Vedas. The Mohammedans also gave a certain 

 amount of education to their priests and well-to-do, but the 

 great mass of the people have been absolutely illiterate for untold gen- 

 erations, in fact several of their greatest native rulers as Akhbar, the 

 greatest of the Moguls, Tippu Sultan of Mysore and Runjat Singh, 

 the great Sikh leader could neither read nor write. 



The first attempts at extending an education to the Indians were 

 made by the missionaries and many of the institutions founded by them 

 in the early days are still among the best in the land. Many of the Gov- 



