ANCIENT INDIA. 



23 



twenty-seven centuries ago. He should perform his necessary 

 purifications before visiting a patient in the morning, and 

 then visit his patient in a clean place, not in one where 

 there is hair, bones, spikes, stones, chaff, broken stone vessels, 

 charcoal, nor in impure situations. 



Although according to Manu, among the official function- 

 aries belonging to individual villages, the physician was enu- 

 merated, the circumstance would appear tolerably evident 

 that at the date of the Mahabharata the position held by 

 him was not remarkable for its dignity ; thus, when the 

 citizens of Sringavera went out to meet Bharata, physicians 

 were enumerated with bathmen, dealers in incense and 

 distillers ; and yet by other allusions met with in history 

 referring to that period, there is every reason to believe that 

 professors of the healing art were held in high estimation. 



In the third century B.C., next in estimation to the priests 

 of Buddha was the class of physicians engaged in the study 

 of the " Nature of man," that is, of physiology. These lived 

 frugally on rice and meal which were freely supplied to them 

 by the people. One class of physicians at the same time 

 were Sramans or hermits ; these hereditarily engaged in 

 curing the diseases of their fellowmen, and did not accept 

 any recompense except the dole of food as above stated. It 

 was about this time that Sakya Muni, while suffering from 

 internal complaints, is believed to have been by his physician 

 Jivaka treated by means of opium, the effects of which drug, 

 if tradition is to be credited, first impressed the sage with the 

 idea of Nirvana. The history of Jivaka is peculiar, the name 

 means causing life ; he studied in Benares and seems to have 

 been household physician to " the great reformer " of that 

 period. 



17. Theory of Disease. — The early theory regarding the 

 origin of disease is somewhat thus : Mankind, as a conse- 

 quence of wickedness, became divided into sects, ignorant, 



