232 SURG.-GEN. C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B., ETC., ON 
system may be traced through them all.* This part of my 
subject is entered upon more at length in the Appendix to 
this paper marked B. 
In the remarks which are now to follow, certain affinities 
will be indicated as existing between the Mosaic code of 
sanitation and practical medicine and that to which the 
name of Manu is attached. Eminent Oriental scholarsft have 
asertained that long prior to the date of Moses (ie, B.c. 
1571) there existed free communication between the 
Egyptians and Brahmanic India, that Egyptian priests from 
the valley of the Nile visited the territories situated between 
the Ganga and Yamuna, otherwise Ganges and Jumna. 
The circumstance of the priests of Mizraim having travelled 
to the seat of Indian science may be held to support the belief 
that their object was to acquire knowledge, while prob- 
ability is equally against the impression that the self- 
sufficient Brahmins were in those distant times any more dis- 
posed to accept teaching from foreigners than they are at the 
present day. Be this as it may, the fact remains that 
through many generations prior to the time referred to the 
condition of the Hindoos had been that of a highly civilised 
and advanced people. Distinguished as they were m philo- 
sophy and in science, history relates that they were not less 
so in the study of means to succour the maimed, to alleviate 
pain, to treat disease, and to preserve health. “The wisdom 
of the East” was referred to in connection with that of 
Egypt by the sacred historians.} 
Although little was known of the Hindoo nation prior to 
the conquest by Alexander, in the 4th century B.c., the fact 
is on record that the Greek surgeons who accompanied that 
expedition were somewhat surprised to see that medical 
knowledge among the inhabitants of North Western India 
was in advance of that possessed by themselves. 
According to tradition, rather than actual history, an off- 
shoot from Hindoo society migrated westward at a very 
early period, notwithstanding the circumstance which we 
are justified in assuming that such a migration was then 
opposed to the rules of the community, as it would be at the 
present day. For example, the Brahmins affirm that the 
Jewish religion, like the much more recent faith of Ma- 
homed, is a heresy from what is contained in the Vedas. 
* Kdinburgh Review, No. 29. 
t+ Sir W. Jones, &e. See also Craufurd, vol. ii, p. 321. 
{ Kings iv. 30; about B.c. 1000. 
