l68 OX THE PHILOSOPHY 



as a science : physic, indeed, appears in these regions 

 iq have been from time immemorial, as we see it 

 practised at this day by Hindus and Muselmans, a 

 mere empirical history of diseases and remedies ; use- 

 ful I admit, in a high degree, and worthy of atten- 

 tive examination, but wholly foreign to the, subject 

 before us. Though the Arabs, however, have chiefly 

 followed the Greeks in this branch of knowledge, 

 and have themselves been implicitly followed by 

 other Mohammedan, writers, yet (not to mention the 

 Chinese, of whose medical works I can at present 

 say nothing with confidence) we still have access to, 

 a number of Sanscrit books on the old Indian practice 

 of physic, from which, if the Hindus had a theo- 

 retical system, we might easily collect it. The 

 Jyurvuia, supposed to be the Work of a celestial 

 physician, is almost entirely lost, unfortunately, per- 

 <s, for the curious European , but happily for the 

 patient Hindu ; since a revealed science precludes im- 

 provement irom experience, to which that of medi- 

 ae ought, above all others, to be left perpetually 

 open: but I have myself met with curious fragments 

 of that i :.l work; and, in the Veda itself, I 



found with astonishment an entire Upanishad on the 

 internal parts of the human body; with an enume- 

 ration ,of nerves, veins, and arteries ; a description 

 of the heart, spleen, and liver ; and various disquisi- 

 tions on the formation and growth of the foetus. 

 From the h\\\s, indeed, of Menu, which have lately 

 appeared in our own language, we may perceive that 

 he ancient Hindus were fond of reasoning, in their 



way, 



