1875.] Eajendralala Mitra — On Leprosy in Ancient India. 161 



is named in the Vedas, and was the author of one of our test books on Law. 

 The name of A'treya occurs in Panini, whose date Goldstiicker takes to be the 

 9th century B. C. It is also met with in the Rig Veda Sanhita, which dates 

 from the 14th century B. 0. Charaka also quotes Bagbhata, who, likewise, has 

 a chapter on Leprosy. Bagbhata, again, quotes Agnivesa, who was a great 

 grammarian, and is named in the Madhukanda of the S 'atapatha Brahmana 

 of the White Yajur Veda, and Jatukarna, who is named in the Yajnavalkya 

 Kanda of the same Veda. The works of the last two are lost, but on the 

 authority of Bagbhata we may fairly accept them to have been professors of 

 medicine, though it is impossible to say whether they wrote on Leprosy or 

 not. Manu mentions leprosy, but the recension of Manu we now have is 

 supposed to be not older than the 6th century B. C. In Sus'ruta's work 

 the word Kushtha, the Sanskrit name for leprosy, has been used in a generic 

 sense, and includes several cutaneous diseases which are not leprous, but 

 from A'treya's description quoted by Charaka, it is evident that- the word 

 primarily meant leprosy. It does not occur in the Rig Veda Sanhita, which 

 dates from the 15th century B.C., and if we could accept this negative 

 evidence to be of any weight, we could say that the disease was not known 

 in the 15th century ; but as there is no reason why the name of a disease 

 should occur in a book of hymns, it is of no value ; while the name of 

 Atreya, which occurs in that Veda and has been cited as that of an authority 

 on the subject, would carry us much beyond the 13th century B. C. to which 

 Dr. Munroe limits the enquiry. 



" The second question I can answer positively by saying there is no in- 

 dication whatever of leprosy having been imported from the West. 



" The third question has been already answered by my remarks on the 

 first. 



" I am not aware of any English or French translation of any Indian 

 work on leprosy except what occurs in Wise's Hindu System of Medicine. 

 I regret I have not a MS. of Bagbhata's work at hand to translate from." 



Extract from the CharaJca Sanhita on the Pathology of Leprosy. 

 u Atreya says — ' When the seven elements of the body become vitiated 

 through the irritation of the wind, the bile, and the phlegm, they affect the 

 skin, the flesh, the spittle and .the other humours of the body. These seven 

 arc the causes respectively of the seven varieties of Jcushtha. The Jcushthas 

 thus produced, cause much pain and suffering. None of these varieties re- 

 sults, however, from the vitiation of a single humour. Kushthas are of seven, 

 of eleven, or of a larger number of kinds ; and these, constantly irritating the 

 system, become incurable.' We shall give a brief account of these as they 

 are produced by the vitiation of the different humours. The wind, the bile, 

 and the phlegm, being vitiated, react on the skin, &c. When the wind is 

 most vitiated it produces the kapala kushtha, the bile the aitdumbara, the 



