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as shewing that they had at an early period paid attention 
to what now constitute the several branches of medicine, but 
also that they had discovered the various kinds of remedies, 
1. " Salya is the art of extracting extraneous substances, whether of 
grass, wood, earth, metal, bone, &c. violently or accidentally introduced 
into the human body ; with the treatment of the inflammation and suppu- 
ration thereby induced ; and by analogy, the cure of all phlegmonoid 
tumours and abscesses. The word Salya means a dart or arrow, and points 
clearly to the origin of this branch of Hindu science. In like manner the 
'Ut^o;, or physician of the Greeks, was derived, according to Sexlus 
Empiricus, from 'Us, an arrow or dart. 
2. " Salahya is the treatment of external organic affections, or diseases 
of the eyes, ears, nose, &c. ; it is derived from Salaka, which means any 
thin and sharp instrument; and is either applicable in the same manner as 
Salya, to the active causes of the morbid state, or it is borrowed from the 
generic name of the slender probes and needles, used in operations on the 
parts affected. 
3. " Kaya Chikitsa is, as tbe name implies, the application of the Ars 
medendi (Chikitsa) to the body in general (Kaya), and forms what we mean 
by the Science of Medicine — the two preceding divisions constitute the 
Surgery of modern schools. 
4. " Bhutavidya is the restoration of the faculties from a disorganised 
state, induced by Demoniacal possession. This art has vanished before 
the diffusion of knowledge, but it formed a very important branch of medical 
practice, through all the schools, Greek, Arabic, or European, and de- 
scended to days very near our own, as a reference to Burton's Anatomy of 
Melancholy may prove to general readers. 
5. " Kaumara bhritya means, the care of infancy, comprehending not 
only the management of children from their birth, but the treatment of 
irregular lactic secretion, and puerperal disorders in mothers and nurses — 
this holds with us also the place, that its importance claims. 
6. " Agada is the administration of antidotes — a subject which, as far as 
it rests upon scientific principles, is blended with our medicine and surgery. 
7. " Rasayana is chemistry, or more correctly alchemy, as the chief end 
of the chemical combinations it describes, and which are mostly metallurgic, 
is the discovery of the universal medicine — the elixir, that was to render 
health permanent, and life perpetual. 
8. " The last branch, Bajiharana, professes to promote the increase of 
the human race— an illusory research, which, as well as the preceding, is 
not without its parallel in ancient, and modern times. 
" We have, therefore, included in these branches, all the real and fanciful 
pursuits of physicians of every time and place. Susruta, however, con- 
fines his own work to the classes, Salya and Salakya, or Surgery; although, 
by an arrangement not uncommon with our own writers, he introduces 
occasionally 
