63 
unable to get any positive dates for their works, we may 
yet, by circumstantial evidence, obtain an approximation 
which will, I think, prove its independent origin. We 
may, however, conceive it to be the remains of a still more 
ancient system, of which we have no records, but of the 
existence of which there can be no doubt, as Herodotus 
relates, that in his time, in Egypt, there were distinct 
physicians for different diseases, which were classed 
according to their seat in the human body ; and from 
Diodorus Siculus we learn, that every physician was 
obliged to follow a written code. Hence it is more than 
probable that there was early in Egypt a distinct system of 
medicine, and we have notices also in the works of the 
ancients of its being a subject much attended to by the Per- 
sian magi. Notwithstanding that the Greeks travelled to the 
East and to Egypt in quest of knowledge, it has been 
said, that Egyptian medicine consisted chiefly in incan- 
tation ; but this explanation is as likely to have been 
owing to the ignorance of the narrators as of the physicians; 
for even in our own day we seldom see even well-informed 
writers able to explain or to describe correctly facts of a 
scientific nature. In the same manner, those who were 
unable to decypher their hieroglyphics, pronounced all 
the knowledge of the Egyptian priesthood to consist in 
magic. 
The only direct testimony we have with respect to the 
date of the works of Charak and of Susruta, is that of 
Professor Wilson, who states that from their being men- 
tioned in the Puranas, the ninth or tenth century is the 
most modern limit of our conjecture; while the style of the 
authors, as well as their having become the heroes of fable, 
indicate a long anterior date. The Arabs must have become 
acquainted with the translations in the eighth, or early in 
the ninth century, as Harun-al-Rashid and Al-Mamoon 
