PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ANCIENT INDIA. 239 
of the Hindoos, may observe, close to the holy Gunga, two 
shrines dedicated respectively to the presiding deities over 
small-pox and cholera, the two great scourges of the popula- 
tion. In Southern India also, on the occasion of the out- 
break of cholera, the goddess Maha Maree was quite recently 
propitiated by noisy ceremonial and sacrifice. A representa« 
tion of that deity, obtained by me on the spot, is in my 
possession. 
Reference has already been made to the similarity, not to 
say identity, which may be traced between observances 
hygienic and medical, as directed in ancient Hindoo writings 
and as enjoined by the Mosaic Code. This remark applies 
with much force in the case of leprosy. Hindoo writers 
distinguished three forms of that dire malady, and indicated 
the diagnostic characters of each, together with the causes 
to which they were severally assigned. The subject of 
treatment was elaborately dealt with, including diet, ex- 
ternal applications, and internal remedies. “Lepers in one 
life,” it was said, “are born again with the complaint, and 
the disease is supposed to be communicable by contaet, by 
breathing the same air, by eating together, by wearing the 
clothes or ornaments of a person labouring under the disease.” * 
In other words, the malady was hereditary, as also con- 
tagious and infectious.f 
With time exhausted, and, I fear, interest and patience of 
my hearers wearied, I bring this paper to an end. Frag- 
mentary and imperfect im themselves, my remarks have em- 
braced no more than a few out of the many points in respect 
to which knowledge in ancient India had attained a high 
standard of progress, ages before the date when history first 
took notice of Hellenic civilisation. That even then, in those 
distant ages, India was not alone in respect to arts and 
sciences conducive to the comfort and well-being of the 
people is doubtless true, for did they not exist, highly per-- 
fected, im Assyria, in Egypt, and,though ina modified degree, 
iu China? Suffice it that conditions as they existed in India 
were of indigenous growth, their subsequent progress 
being westward, through Arabia and Persia, even to Con- 
tinental Europe and the British Isles, whence by example 
and precept by our fellow-countrymen and countrywomen. 
it is now, In an ever-increasing degree, our duty as a people 
* Hindoo Medicine, by Wise, pp. 258, et seq. 
+ For summary of Mosaic Regulations, see Appendix C, 
