238 SURG.-GEN. C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B., ETC., ON 
the cure of a disease, namely, a physician; a disease that is 
known; a reasonable patient; medicines, instruments, and 
attendants—all of which points are fully entered upon, In 
reference to the physician, it is said in the Ayur Veda that 
“money will be the recompense bestowed by the rich; 
friendship, reputation, Increase of virtue, prayers, and prati- 
tude, will be that of the poor.* 
Under the head of « ne and Physiology” are con- 
sidered “the theory of the elements ; beginning and growth 
of the body; nature of the corporeal, vital, and spiritual 
parts, the temperaments, and death.” Pharmacy and materia 
medica are next considered. Remarks follow “on simple 
medicines from the vegetable and animal kingdoms.”t 
The frequent accidents incidental to the pursuit of hunting, 
agriculture, and war induced the Hindoo sages to pay atten- 
tion to surgery nits various divisions. In the Vedas surgery 
was considered as the first of the eight departments of 
medical science. 
Hindoo mythology peopled the heavens, the earth, the 
waters, and all animated nature with aaa fire of 
imaginary beings, arrayed in tints borrowed from the feryid 
imaginations of tropical clmates. Some of those supposi- 
titious beings were beneficent, others malignant, and to the 
latter the occurrence of diseases and frightful dreams was 
attributed, as, long subsequently, the origin of these evils 
came to be similarly accounted for in the philosophy of 
Pythagoras, Thus it came about that everyone had some 
deity to fear, to solicit or propitiate.t 
Particular gods were supposed to superintend different 
parts of the body, and to them prayers were offered up before 
operations were performed or medicines were exhibited. The 
following is a list of the principal among them, and of the 
parts “‘superintended” by them respectively, namely :— 
Ugni, or fire, the tongue; Bayu, air, life; Indra, the firma- 
ment, strength ; Baruna (Varuna), water, understanding: 
Surya, the sun, sight; Chandra, the moon, understanding; 
Vishnu, the preserver, courage ; Brahma, the cre 2ator, soul; 
Samudra, the ocean, the nmabiliens : Dhruba, the stars, eye- 
brows. 
At the present day, the visitor to Benares, the sacred city 
* Wise, p. 29. 
+ In the time of Solomon (s.c. 1015-975) drugs from India were largely 
eapones by the ships of Tarshish. 
t Craufurd, vol. 1, pp. 144, 184. 
