“5th. _Kaumara bhritya_, or the treatment of the diseases of women and
children.

“6th. _Agada._--The administration of antidotes.

“We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison was
only too common an instrument of ambition or revenge.

“7th. _Rasayana._--Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to say
alchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substances
mostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine or
elixir which was to give immortal life.

“8th. _Bajikarana._--Was connected with the means of promoting the
increase of the human race.”

One of the articles of Hindoo medicine was _Kshara_ or alkaline
salts,--these are directed to be obtained by burning different
substances of vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six times
their measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used both
internally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient
applications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain.

I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been at
the Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and also
that the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the time
of the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubt
concerning this fact, as in Serapion’s works we find Charak actually
mentioned by name; under the head _De Mirobalanis_ we find “_Et Xarch