Page:A Short History of Aryan Medical Science.djvu/199

in-ano, and extract foreign bodies. Inoculation for small-pox seems to have been known to them from a very early age. Long before Edward Jenner was born, certain classes in India, especially cow-herds, shepherds, Charanas, and the like, had been in the habit of collecting and preserving the dry scabs of the pustules. A little of this they used to place on the forearm, and puncture the skin with a needle. In consequence of this inoculation, the classes are supposed to have enjoyed a certain amount of immunity from small-pox. Dr Huillet, late of Pondicherry, assures us that "Vaccination was known to a physician, Dhanvantari, who flourished before Hippocrates." The ancient Hindoos used to practise the dissection of the human body, and taught it to their disciples. They knew human anatomy and something of physiology. "The Hindoo philosophers," says Dr Wise, "undoubtedly deserve the credit of having, though opposed by strong prejudice, entertained sound and philosophical views respecting uses of the dead to the living ; and were the first scientific and successful cultivators of the most important and essential of all the departments of medical knowledge — practical anatomy." It may as well be added that they were perfectly acquainted with