75 
in the annals of medicine, can only be accounted for from 
the geographical position of India with respect to Europe, 
and the total unacquaintance with the refined language of 
the former, which prevailed in the latter even to our own 
day. For when the name of even the most celebrated 
Hindoo writer presented itself before a modern author 
writing expressly on the subject, it is passed over without 
comment or examination — " Scharak Indus, a Rhazeo 
citatus plane ignotus."" (Sprengel. Hist.Rei. Herb.l. p. 234) 
That a Hindoo system of medicine does exist, we know 
from their numerous books on all branches of that science ; 
that some of these were written prior to the Arabs, we have 
shewn by their being quoted in the works of the latter. 
How much earlier than the eighth century the principal of 
them were composed, we may only hope to ascertain by 
the progress now making in settling Indian Chronology. 
But in absence of this it is practicable, as I have stated, 
to get a conviction of the cultivation of medicine among fhe 
Hindoos at still earlier periods, from occasional notices 
by writers of the West ; and we cannot but allow them an 
early knowledge of the properties of many of the valu- 
able drugs which their country afforded them, when we 
see the necessarily subsequent employment of the same by 
the Greeks and Romans. 
For this purpose it is not again necessary to notice the 
Hindoo drugs mentioned in the works of the Arabs, and 
still less to refer to such of the Greek authors as Actuarius 
and Myrepsus, who were subsequent to them. But it is 
advisable to keep in mind, that the Arabs, from their 
position and communication with the East, must necessarily 
have had a practical knowledge of the articles imported 
from India, and described in their works; while the 
Christian physicians employed as translators in the City of 
the Caliphs, being equally acquainted with both the Greek 
