48 
as the Sanscrit does among those of the northern provinces, 
as from it have been derived the Teloogoo, Malayalan, 
and Canarese languages." This it is necessary to know, 
in order to appreciate the value of the few translations 
which we possess of Medical works from the Tamul; as the 
first section of the Kalpastanum, which is a kind of com- 
pendium of the general rules of Pharmacy; and an abstract 
of another Indian Treatise of Medicine, published by Dr. 
Heyne, in his Tracts on India, p. 125-171, where he states 
that " most Hindoo works of any note have been originally 
written in Sanscrit, from which they have been translated 
into the modern dialects, as Tamul, Telinga," &c. A few 
passages have also been published by Dr. Ainslie, in his 
Materia Medica of India, from the works of the Megha 
Reesha, or Saint Aghastier or Agastya, who is usually 
considered as the representative of the introduction of 
Sanscrit Literature into the Peninsula of India, and who 
must be of considerable antiquity, as " he is named in the 
Iiamayana, the oldest work most probably in the profane 
literature of the Hindoos" (Wilson). In addition to these, 
we have lately had published in English (Journ. Asiat. Soc. 
of Calcutta, iv. p. 1), by the celebrated Hungarian traveller, 
Csoma de Koros, a Synopsis of a Tibetan work on 
Medicine, of which the contents, he informs us, like that 
of the whole of Tibetan literature, has been derived 
from Sanscrit in the eighth century. 
From such sources, I find that the Hindoos, like ancient, 
as well as modern practitioners every where except in large 
towns, practised all branches of the profession. In their 
works, therefore, we find notices in all departments of 
medicine ; instances of which I have not time to adduce; 
but it may be sufficient to mention that, with much 
fanciful Anatomy, imaginative Physiology, and absurd 
attention to numbers, there are accounts of Poisons and 
