2 



ON HYGIENE IN 



I. GENERAL HYGIENE. 



1. Historical Allusions to Hygiene. — That the preservation 

 of public health — in other words Hygiene — was in the very- 

 earliest periods of India's history considered in relation to 

 general polity is apparent from the frequent allusions to it 

 contained in " The Institutes of Manu ;" nor is the circum- 

 stance less evident from the tenor of those institutes, that the 

 state of society to which they refer was in many respects 

 advanced and refined. Here, for example, is an enumeration 

 of subjects touched upon by that great law-giver, namely, 

 1, On the Creation; 2, On Education, or on the "First 

 Order;" 3, On Marriage, or on the " Second Order ;" 4, On 

 Economies and Private Morals; 5, On Diet, Purification, 

 and Women ; 6, On Devotion, or on the " Third and Fourth 

 Orders ;" 7, On Government and on the Military Classes ; 

 8, On Judicature and on Law, Private and Criminal ; 9, On 

 the Commercial and Servile Classes ; 1 0, On the Mixed Classes 

 and on Times of Distress ; 11, On Penance and Expiation ; 12, 

 On Transmigration and Final Beatitude. The Ayur Veda, 

 propounding the science of health, contains various allusions 

 to subjects more properly within the province of Preventive 

 Medicine — Pathyapathya, that is Hygiene, including the 

 care and diet suitable for children, — the universal panacea 

 that would render health permanent and perpetual, and 

 prevent, as well as cure, diseases, — besides various distinct 

 precepts for the preservation of health. Similarly, the Atreya 

 includes preventive as well as curative medicine, although 

 several of the subjects therein described under the first- 

 named category have long since ceased to be looked upon 

 as within the province of hygiene. 



In that ancient work there are chapters on the classification 

 of diseases ; the physical influence of soil and season ; on age 

 and temper, and on the influence of the winds- — in other 

 words on medical geography and climatology, the qualities 



