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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 4, p. 458.

458 THRE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP. processes of preparations, with elaborate directions for the administration and classification of medicines. Their practice of physic embraced the classification, causes, symptoms, and treatment of diseases. Thie maladies thus dealt with were arranged in ten classes: namely, those affecting (i) the humours; (2) the general system, including fevers; (3 to 9) the several organs and parts of the body; and (io) trivial complaints. The surgery of the ancient Indian doctors appears to have been bold and skilful. They performed amputations and a number of other difficult operations, and were expert in midwifery. Students were trained to operate on wax spread out on a board, or on the tissues and cells of the vegetable kingdom, and upon dead animals. As Buddhism passed into modern Hinduism, the hospitals disappeared; and the Brahmans, scrupulously avoiding contact with blood or morbid matter, withdrew from the medical profession and left it in the hands of the Vaidyas, a lower caste. They, in turn, abandoned medical practice; and thus the decline of Hindu medicine went on until it sank into the hands of the village kabirTj, whose knowledge consists of jumbled fragments of the Sanskrit texts and a by-no-means contemptible pharmacopoeia, supplemented by spells and fasts. Meanwhile the Muham- madan conquests brought in a new school of foreign physicians, who derived their knowledge partly from Arabic translations of the Sanskrit medical works of the best period, though more largely from the Greek authors (Hippocrates, Galen, &c.), whose works had likewise been translated into Arabic. These Musalman doctors or hakins monopolized the patronage of the Muhammadan princes and nobles of India'. Duties The work of the Medical and Sanitary department in British of the India includes a number of important branches of the public Medical and Sani- service. Hospitals, dispensaries, and lunatic asylums; vital tary de- statistics; general sanitation and vaccination; the health of partment in British ports and shipping; medico-legal, bacteriological, and other India. scientific and miscellaneous matters fall within its scope. Before giving an account of the more important of these subjects, it will be convenient to describe the constitution and organization of the department. Constitu- The principal and subordinate officers are drawn from five tion of sources: the Indian Medical Service, civil and military the depart- ment. Assistant Surgeons, and civil and military Hospital Assis- tants. The Indian Medical Service (known as I.M.S.) is 1 Hunter's Indian Emrpire, pp. 148-51.