neglected by them.

Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate of potash,
borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, common
salt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinary
men; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medical
works, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they made
by distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that they
prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen
pots, calling it _Gunduk Ka Attar_, or “attar of sulphur.” Nitric acid,
which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing
saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths
over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when
they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the
plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined by
Vauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids.

Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, dried
and pounded with the above acid liquor.

Arsenic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venereal
diseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and in
intermittent fevers.

It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at the
present time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still made
and sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from time
immemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation in
the arts of subliming, distilling, &c.