PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ANCIENT INDIA. 249 
the whole course of that branch of knowledge, and compare the 
time when the Veda was itself written, perhaps 1500 years B.c. 
Many years ago, when travelling in Italy, I attended a lecture 
at one of the Universities, and the Professor of Archeology began 
in this way :— 
“ T’uomo e sempre stato e sempre sara lo stesso.” 
Now if ever that were thoroughly illustrated it is so in the 
condition of the Hindoo. It is true, as Mr. Thornton pointed 
out, that modifications have taken place, and wherever the Anglo- 
Saxon race goes, in these days of railways, modifications will 
take place. The great centres of population are affected, but 
I believe the Hindoos are now pretty much as they were 1500 
years B.c.; how long it may take to mould and alter the 
whole it is quite impossible to say. Medicine seems to have been 
taught in India scientifically, with a considerable knowledge of 
anatomy, and some physiology, gained not by looking at pictures 
but by dissection, for although a high caste Hindoo would not now 
dissect, in the old days he appears to have doneso. In fact, it has 
heen pointed out by Brahminical authority in Caleutta, where a 
Medical College is established, that there is no reason why a Brah- 
min should not study dissection as lower castes do. There was 
knowledge of disease long before Hippocrates wrote. We, in the 
West have returned, | hope, somewhat of what we got from the 
East. We are wont to say we got medicine from the successors of 
Hippocrates and the Greeks; but it existed long anterior to that. 
The Greeks themselves probably got it from the Hgyptians ; 
whether they got it from the Hindoos or the Hindoos from them it 
is impossible to say. 
Dr. Wise’s learned translations of and commentaries on Hindoo 
writings shows how much they knew about disease, how success- 
fully they treated it, and how much they knew about drugs and 
poisons, about sanitation even, and about many things which inthe 
middle ages were altogether lost sight of, but which have revived 
again now, and will, I hope, by degrees be further developed by 
science. I trust we are now restoring to Indians that which came 
originally from their own country, and it is satisfactory to know 
how well they take to it. In the study of medicine Hindoos are 
quite equal in all they do, in their power of learning, to their 
European brethren. Their curriculum of medicine is severe, and 
