indus dixit;_” and again, in another section “_Xarcha indus;_” there
being no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight change
in the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna,
again, we find reference to “Scirak indum.” Rhazes, again, who was
previous to Avicenna, has “_Inquit Scarac indianus_,” and again “_Dixit
Sarac;_” in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yet
been traced, “_Sindifar_,” or, as it is in another place, “_Sindichar
indianus._”

Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos,
published in the _Oriental Magazine_, examines into the distinctive
qualities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that the
description given in Avicenna, in the section “De Sanguisugis,” is
almost identical with the Hindoo author’s description of the twelve
sorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of the
various sorts.

That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact that
Avicenna says “_Indi dixerunt_.”

I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had access
to the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if we
carefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine as
distinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that science
of medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit.

It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant and
highly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and the
changes occurring in mixtures of various substances should have been
unstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from being