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thought short of positive proof, that the works in which 
the earliest medical writings of the Hindoos are contained, 
are very ancient ; we can hardly deny to them the early 
cultivation of medicine ; and this so early, as, from internal 
evidence, to be second, apparently to none with whom we 
are acquainted. This is further confirmed by the Arabs and 
Persians early translating their works ; so also the Tamuls 
and Cingalese in the south ; the Tibetans and Chinese in 
the East; and likewise from our finding, even in the earliest 
of the Greek writers, Indian drugs mentioned by corrupted 
Sanscrit names. We trace them at still earlier periods in 
Egypt, and find them alluded to even in the oldest chap- 
ters of the Bible. 
It has been remarked, that improvements in medicine 
have usually kept pace with those in the other sciences and 
arts of life. Medicine is not likely, therefore, to have attained 
any great perfection in India, without some traces of cor- 
responding literary and scientific eminence. Nor, indeed, 
does India form any exception to the general observation, 
for in the histories of the sciences, we find constant reference 
to the East as having originated, or at least cultivated, and 
made improvements in several. To investigate so extensive 
a subject, or attempt to do justice to even one of its sub- 
divisions, would require not only time and space, but that 
which is still less at my command, namely, a thorough 
knowledge of the history and progress of the sciences in 
question in other parts of the world, as well as of the 
language and early literary and scientific acquirements of 
the Hindoos. But as this ignorance of Sanscrit has no 
doubt deprived me of the power of tracing many words 
and names of material substances to their original sources, 
so it has given my opinions the advantage of being in a great 
measure unbiassed ; because it was not from an acquaintance 
with, or fondness for their literature, that I was led to 
