57 
joined notes from Hindoo works, viewed in connexion witli 
the apparent antiquity and independent origin of their 
Medicine, display, I conceive, considerable merit, not only 
dered. They performed many extraordinary cures, as might have been 
expected, from their superhuman character. 
" The meaning of these legendary absurdities is clear enough, and is 
conformable to the tenor of all history. Man, in the semi barbarous state, 
if not more subject to external injuries, than internal disease, was at least 
more likely to seek remedies for the former, which were obvious to his 
senses, than to imagine the means of relieving the latter, whose nature he 
could so little comprehend. 
" Surgical, therefore, preceded medicinal skill ; as Celsus has asserted, 
when commenting on Homer's account of Podalirius and Machaon, who 
were not consulted, he says, during the plague in the Grecian camp, 
although regularly employed, to extract darts and heal wounds. The same 
position is maintained, as we shall hereafter see, by the Hindu writers, in 
plain, as well as in legendary language. 
" According to some authorities, the Aswins instructed Indra, and Indra 
was the preceptor of Dhanwantari ; but others make Atreya, Bharad- 
waja, and Charaka, prior to the latter. Charaka's work, which goes 
by his name, is extant — Dhanwantari is also styled Kasiraja, prince of 
Kasi or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, the son of Viswamitra, and 
consequently a contemporary of Rama : his work also exists, and is our 
chief guide at present. It is unquestionably of some antiquity, but it is not 
easy to form any conjecture of its real date, except that it cannot have the 
prodigious age, which Hindu fable assigns it — it is sufficient to know, that 
it is perhaps the oldest work on the subject, excepting that of Charaka, 
which the Hindus possess. One commentary on the text, made by 
Uehatta, a Cashmirian, is probably as old as the twelfth or thirteenth 
century, and his comment, it is believed, was preceded by others. The 
work is divided into six portions — the Sutra St'hana, or Chirurgical 
Definitions ; the Nidana St'hana, or section on Symptoms, or Diagnosis ; 
Sarira St'hana, anatomy; Chikitsa St'hana, the internal application of 
Medicines ; Kalpa St'hana, Antidotes ; Uttara St'hana, or a supplemen- 
tary section on various local diseases, or affections of the eye, ear, &c. — In 
all these divisions, however, surgery, and not general medicine, is the 
object of the Susruta. 
" The Ayur Veda, which originally consisted of one hundred sections, of 
a thousand stanzas each, was adapted to the limited faculties and life of 
man, by its distribution into eight subdivisions, the enumeration of which 
conveys to us an accurate idea, of the objects of the Ars medendi amongst 
the Hindus. The divisions are thus enumerated — 1. Salt/a ; 2. Salakya; 
3. Kaya chikitsa ; 4. Bhutavidya ; 5. Kaumarabhritya ; 6. Agada ; 7. Ba- 
sayana ; and 8. Bajiharana. — They are explained as follows : 
I \."Salya 
