53 
there is a long list of what are translated assuaging and 
depuratory medicines. Rut as we should likewise expect 
from the observers of nature, in a country where the 
accession of disease is as sudden as is the rapid accumu- 
lation of fearfully fatal symptoms ; which are to be arrested 
only by promptness of decision, and vigour of practice ; 
so for such cases the Hindoo sages have observed the 
efficacy of blood-letting, cupping and leeches, with drastic 
and mild purgatives, emetics, diaphoretics, baths, and 
aspersions of water. Some of the acrid poisons even, were 
used at this early period, with, as we have seen, arsenic 
and mercurial preparations, as well as stimulants, sedatives, 
and narcotics. With respect to their prescriptions and 
works, Professor Wilson makes the valuable remark, that 
in proportion as the work is more modern, the com- 
pounds become more extravagant, and assume a more 
important place in the practice. But India, gentlemen, is 
not the only country where the simplicity and clearness of 
observers has been displaced by the obscurity and mysti- 
fication of compilers. 
The arrangement of Materia Medica, in the Susruta,* 
is one which I do not recollect to have elsewhere seen, but 
one portion of which plainly betrays its origin. All 
medicines are divided into locomotive and non-locomotive : 
— among the former are included all animals, whether 
viviparous, oviparous, or produced in moist places. On 
the banks of the Ganges, as on those of the Nile, we see 
the phenomena resulting from moisture and heat in the 
swarming of animal forms, gave rise to the doctrines of 
* My attention was lately more particularly called to the Materia Medica 
of Susruta by Dr. de Glenn, from St. Petersburgh, who did me the favour 
of a visit to inquire into the state of medicine in India ; as he had, with 
the assistance of Dr. Rosen, obtained some insight into the contents of 
that Sanscrit author. 
