January 7, 1897] 
NATURE 
221 
of the past what rightly interests us to know, and what 
the spirits of the great departed would not resent our 
knowing. To retail the spiteful gossip that clings to the 
memory of Kepler or Cardan, and to linger over the 
details of the Newton-Leibnitz controversy, is not the 
mark of a generous mind, and is utterly unprofitable 
besides. We are glad that, in this respect, Prof. Cajori’s 
book is above reproach. G. B. M. 
HINDU MEDICINE. 
A Short History of Aryan Medical Science. By H. H. 
Sir Bhagvat Sinh Jee, K.C.I.E., M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., 
F.R.C.P.E., Thakore Saheb of Gondal. Pp. 280; 
with ro plates. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.) 
HE author, an Indian prince, after studying medicine 
with diligence and distinction in this country, 
applied himself on his return to India to a study of the 
ancient medical science of Hindustan. As a result, he 
presents in this treatise a bird’s-eye view of the mar- 
vellous civilisation of India, and he does so from the point 
of view of a Hindu, in a spirit of faith and optimism 
creditable to his piety and patriotism. Perhaps a larger 
exercise of the critical faculty might have been more 
acceptable to Western intelligence, especially as, in some 
matters of history and chronology, the author is at issue 
with European authorities ; but it might also have spoiled | 
the picture, which is simple and bright. The writer 
prefaces his account of Indian medical science by a brief 
sketch of the early civilisation of the Hindus and of their 
religion, philosophy, science and art. The science and 
art of medicine were an important feature in this great 
system, elaborated according to the same principles and 
by the same methods as other branches of knowledge, 
and therefore possessing the same merits and the same 
faults. ‘‘ The Hindus believe,” the author tells us, “that 
like all their other sciences, the science of medicine has 
been revealed to them.” 
| 
medical observers scrutinised closely the structure and 
functions of the human body, and not content with 
noting and recording these, they must fully and finally 
explain them. For this purpose they invented three 
principles or essences or spirits—va/a, pitta, and kafa— 
| wind, bile, and phlegm, which, acting upon and through 
the constituent parts of the body, gave rise to all the 
| manifold physiological manifestations of the organism. 
| Disease was held to arise from excess, defect, or disorder 
| of one or more of these humours, and the object of the 
The bible of medicine is the “Ayur Veda,” whose | 
authorship is attributed to no less a personage than © 
Brahma. Subsequent commentators, chief among them 
Charaka and Sushruta, have reproduced and somewhat | 
amplified this record. The author, with great insight 
and judgment, gives an interesting history and epitome 
| physician in examining the patient, was to detect which 
humour or humours were at fault, and select the remedy 
calculated to restrain, stimulate, or correct the aberrant 
fluid. A doctrine of temperaments was built on the same 
basis. Associated with these hypothetical spirits, other 
| supernatural agencies were postulated ; faults committed 
in a former state of existence, and the operations of 
demons, were included among disease causes. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that rites, ceremonies, amulets, 
omens, and charms entered largely into treatment. The 
Thakore Saheb advances strong claims for the antiquity 
and excellence of Indian medicine. He contends that 
the medical science of the Greeks, Egyptians, and 
Arabians, was extensively borrowed from India. He 
asserts that Jenner and Pasteur were anticipated in the 
matter of protective inoculation, Morton and Simpson in 
anesthesia, Laennec in auscultation, Piorry in percussion, 
and Lister if antiseptics by Indian sages; that the 
vaunted discovery of Harvey was also presaged, if not 
preceded, by Indian doctrines regarding the circulation 
of the blood. He shows that modern medicine has 
derived important practices, such as massage, and many 
useful drugs, from India, and even goes the length, in 
apologising for the shortcomings of Indian surgery, of 
asserting that in ancient times the use of drugs prevented 
| or dispersed tumours, and other conditions now demand- 
ing surgical intervention. He expounds at some length 
the rules of hygiene and disease prevention laid down by 
the visiis. They are mostly personal, and their elabora- 
tion is astonishing. Life to the orthodox Hindu was a 
series of minute rites governing every item of daily 
existence—some salutary, but most of them frivolous. 
Still, with all its absurdities, Indian medicine was a 
‘triumph of acumen and industry, and the author has 
of the doctrines and practices laid down in these works, | 
of which he appends a list of 107. We observe that he 
has not included among these the “ Navanitaka,” an | 
ancient Sanskrit medical manuscript found by Captain 
Bower at Kuchar, in Eastern Turkestan, in 1890, and 
which is believed to be older than the works of Charaka 
and Sushruta. The development of science by the wise 
men of the East was a mixture of observation and con- 
templation. Their observation was keen though some- 
what crude, but when the results were submitted to the 
process of intellectual digestion, an excessive addiction 
to analysing and systematising produced a code of 
knowledge into which imagination largely entered, and 
which was specious and unsound. The product, possess- | 
ing the character and sanction of a revelation, became | 
straightway a fixed guide, which has remained authori- 
tative and unaltered through the ages. 
NO. 1419, VOL. 55] 
The early | 
succeeded in placing a very clear and complete com- 
pendium of it on record in this book, which he who runs 
may read. Perhaps his hope that rational and pro- 
gressive medical science may still be able to learn some- 
thing from Aryan medical science is a feasible one ; 
but the materials and methods of the latter must to 
that end be recast in the furnace of modern inductive 
research. 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
On the Adjustment and Testing of Telescopic Objectives. 
By T. Cooke and Sons. Second edition. Pp. 96. 
(York : Delittle and Sons, 1896.) 
THE first edition of this admirable little volume appeared 
in the year 1891, and since that time its fame has spread 
abroad, and both German and Italian translations have 
been made. In this short interval of time a very 
notable advance has been made in the construction 
