Herodotus, who is very ample on this fubject, informs us, that the Egyptians purged themfelves every month, three days fucceffively, by vomits and clyfters, to preferve uninterrupted health,* Their averfion to the rich and rancid flesh of fwine, a fpecies of food alfo ftrictly prohibited by the Levitical law, and inviolably avoided both by ancient and modern Jews, as well as the entire abstinence of the facerdotal order from fifh, and animals accustomed to feed on fish, is doubtlefs to be imputed to the fame judicious pre

caution.

I have frequently obferved that milk, GHEE, or clarified butter, and rice, dreffed and rendered palatable, a variety of ways, by the rich piceries of the country, formed the principal food of the Brahmins and indeed of the Hindoo tribes in general. No banquet is efteemed more coftly and luxuriant by those priests than a full bowl of fresh cream, whofe richness they moderate with the diluting juice of the cooling and high-flavoured fruits of that garden of Afia. Hence the veneration of the Indians for the bovine.

Herodotus, lib. ii. p. 82.

fpecies,

fpecies, which feems to have originated as well from their gratitude to that useful animal for the nutriment it produced them as from the anxious wifh of their great legiflator to preserve a race fo absolutely neceffary to the concerns of agriculture, which was to be the conftant employ of the fourth part of the nation; and here we difcover at least one probable fource of the prevailing doctrine of the Metempsychosis. This rooted veneration both of the Indians and Egyptians for the fame deified animal was the occafion of the former giving to the rock, through which the Ganges rushes into Hindoftan, the imagined form of a cow, whence its geographical name of GANGOTRI, the Cow's Mouth; and caused the spot where the Nile separates, at the point of the Delta, to be denominated BATN-EL-BAKARI, the Cow's Belly; a very remarkable fact, and fcarcely poffible to be accounted for on the score of mere accident.

With all this ftudious care of the legiflator to prevent difeafes, fince they are the lot of fuffering humanity, diseases would at times afflict the Hindoos with as much inevitable certainty, though, probably, from $ 2 their

their temperate habits, with far lefs violence, than their Afiatic neighbours.

It cannot be fuppofed, indeed, that, in a climate where rice and vegetables compofe the uniform diet of the people, many acute difeafes could have occurred in the practice of the physician; and those that did occur were probably cured by dietetic medicine, beyond which the knowledge of mankind, in the very early ages to which I allude, cannot be prefumed to have greatly advanced. The whole extent of the science, at that time known, seems to have been confined to the ufe of medicines that were either of an emetic, purgative, or diuretic, nature. Thus, among those of a purgative fort, are reckoned the Mirabolans, which are prefcribed very generally and abundantly in cafes that require it. As a fovereign ftomachic they give the infufion of a reed, on the Malabar coast, called Cræatt, a plant resembling the Centaurus Major: it has an extremely bitter taste, and is confidered as a great promoter of digeftion. In this light they also esteem the nut of the Areca, mixed with chunam, a kind of lime burnt and made of the finest fhells, of which they univerfally take very

large

large quantities. But what fhall we think of a race who infift on the cooling virtues of pepper, and give large dofes of it in a burning fever? Among provocatives, they have always fet a very high value on the invigorating root of ginfeng, and others of fimilar quality, and have been but too happy in finding out a great variety which need not be here enumerated. For fluxes of blood, which are not uncommon in this climate, especially in the autumnal season, the Brahmins have difcovered a very fimple, but, as they affirm, a very efficacious, remedy; it consists in a regimen limited to rice alone, ftewed dry, to which they ascribe a quality highly absorbent of the acrimony which occafions the disorder: by way of drink, they allow only water, corrected by a very moderate quantity of cinna-mon or caffia lignum.

If we may judge from certain customs now prevalent in India, and recorded by modern travellers, fire was also not unfrequently applied in cafes where the aid of the physician was necessary; for, at this day, in violent fickness, purging, and contortion of the intefines, they apply to the feet plates of burn

ing iron, which are faid rarely to fail of the intended effect.

The expreffed juice of particular roots and vegetables, known by experience to poffefs either of the qualities above-mentioned, emetic, purgative, or diuretic, was freely adminif tered to the patient who required it. With refpect to acute internal difeafes, when they did happen, their flender experience in the deeper branches of the healing art, added to their general, I do not say total, ignorance of anatomy, rendering them utterly inadequate to the management of them, they refigned the patients afflicted with them to the care of the gods, by whofe immediate refentment against their crimes, it was firmly believed, they were incurred. In difeafes of this defperate clafs recourfe was had to earneft fupplication and oblations, often of the most coftly kind, in hopes, by them, to appeafe the wrath of the offended deity. The Brahmins, who, on these occa fions, found it neceffary to fubftitute juggling for science, reforted to the most powerful charms to evoke the evil dæmon, and incantations the moft awful were the immediate prelude either to a speedy recovery or a rapid exit. In confidering this early stage of the

fcience,