ANovimbef,T894m-}      The  Materia  Medica  of  Ceylon.  531 
rarer  alkaloidal  combinations  and  derivatives,  and  probably  all  of 
the  newer  synthetic  medicinal  products.  The  newer  anaesthetics  and 
hypnotics,  with  the  host  of  the  other  newer  remedies,  were  arranged 
in  striking  contrast  with  the  oldest  known  forms  of  medicaments. 
Cnief  among  the  oriental  nations  in  displaying  her  products  was 
Ceylon.  In  an  economic  sense  her  exhibit  was  remarkable  to  the 
student.  They  exhibited  tea  and  coffee  from  more  than  100  estates, 
one  sample  of  tea  being  valued  at  $175  per  pound.  Her  "  Courts" 
were  constructed  entirely  of  native  woods.  Some  20,000  cubic  feet 
of  timber  from  twenty-two  different  trees  were  expressly  felled  and 
hewn  for  this  purpose.  Indeed,  every  product  of  the  soil  that  could 
be  utilized  in  manufacture,  art,  medicine  or  food  was  in  the  main 
displayed.  The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  record  some  of  the  facts 
regarding  the  practice  of  medicine  in  the  Sinhalese  and  the  com- 
moner products  employed,  the  information  relating  thereto  having 
been  in  the  main  obtained  as  a  result  of  the  celebrated  exposition. 
One  of  their  writers  says :  "  In  Sinhalese  medical  practice, 
disease  is  held  to  be  a  disturbance  in  the  equilibrium  of  the  three 
humors — air,  bile  and  phlegm — which  pervade  the  human  system. 
These  agents  preside  over  certain  vital  functions,  and  while  susceptible 
of  being  affected  by  temperature,  diet,  drugs,  habits,  etc.,  react  on  the 
organ  whose  functions  they  control.  Every  individual  is  supposed  to  be 
born  with  a  predisposition  to  some  one  of  these  humors,  or  to  a  mod- 
ification of  one  of  them  in  combination  with  some  proximate  princi- 
ple, corresponding  with  the  nervous,  bilious,  phlegmatic  and  san- 
guineous temperaments  formerly  recognized  in  the  practice  of  the 
medicines  of  Europe.  The  object  of  treatment,  is  therefore,  to  ascer- 
tain the  mutual  relation  existing  between  these  three  humors  in  the 
patient  and  to  bring  about  an  equilibrium  between  them.  Crude 
as  this  theory  may  appear,  it  is  essentially  the  system  which,  bor- 
rowed from  India  by  the  Greeks  and  Arabians,  entered  more  or  less 
into  all  European  systems  of  medicines  till  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century. 
"  Of  the  five  or  six  hundred  different  causes  of  disease. recognized 
in  Sinhalese  medicine,  more  than  a  fourth  are  ascribed  to  the 
abnormal  conditions  of  the  three  humors,  and  the  remainder  to 
vitiation  of  the  seven  proximate  principles  of  the  human  body,  viz.: 
blood,  flesh,  fat,  etc.  Hence  diseases  are  not  classified  by  their 
symptoms  so  much  as  by  their  causes,  and  accidental  symptoms  are 
