GREAT EPIDEMICS ASIATIC CHOLERA. 287 



finished its work, languishes, and seems to disappear, but 

 it still continues to betray its presence here and there at 

 longer or shorter intervals. 



II. 



We have seen that the first great epidemic observed in 

 the Indies, before its appearance in Europe, occurred in 

 1817 ; at that date the cholera became a traveler, but it 

 had long existed in Asia. The testimony of philology and 

 archaeology proves in the clearest way that it has" been 

 known there from early antiquity. Hindoo mythology re- 

 lates that the two Aswyns, or sons of Surya, the sun, taught 

 medicine to Indra, who composed the " Ayur-Veda," the most 

 ancient medical book in India. Indra in turn taught the 

 art to Dhawantrie, and he had for a scholar Susruta, con- 

 temporary with Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. Now, 

 Susruta left a work which Dr. Wise, director of the medical 

 service at Bengal, translated and abridged in 1845, and in 

 which a distinct description of the cholera is found. It is 

 not easy to give the true date for this composition ; but 

 Tholozan supposes there are good reasons for fixing it 

 about the third century before the Christian era. Other San- 

 scrit works of the same date speak of a similar malady. The 

 most curious illustration is an inscription copied at Viz- 

 zianuggur by Sanderson, upon a monolith, part of the ruins 

 of an ancient temple. This inscription, which is ascribed 

 to a pupil of Buddha, and seems to date from an age pre- 

 ceding the conquest of Alexander, reads as follows : " Blue 

 lips, a shrunken face, hollow eyes, the belly knotted, the 

 limbs cramped and crooked as if by effect of fire, are marks 

 of the cholera, which comes down by malign conjurations 

 of the priests to destroy heroes. The thickened breath 

 clings to the warrior's face, his fingers are bent and twisted 

 in different ways ; he dies in contortions, the victim of the 

 wrath of Siva." Many Hindoo and Persian works of a later 



