THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 9g
been able to explain, And it is worthy of remark, that in the first efforts of an intellectual people to establish a system of surgery, they at once achieved its boldest results; for the ancient Hindoos performed lithotomy, and extracted the foetus from the uterus; and in their works are described one hundred and twenty-seven surgical instruments, but with so correct an estimate of their capabilities, that they declare “ the first, best, and most important of all implements is the hand.” In all that concerns the spirit with which the study of medicine should be conducted, and the moral attributes of those who practise it, the Hindoo records display a refinement of feeling and judgment not to be surpassed by the most highly finished portrait of the medical character of the present day. ‘ Having com* pleted,” states the Hindoo, “ the indispensable course of study, practice is then to be acquired; that he, who is acquainted with the science of medicine only from studying the books which treat of it, and is not well grounded in the practice of it also, is bewildered when called upon to attend the sick; that he, who engages in practice, presumptuously disregarding written science, is held in no estimation ; that both these descriptions of persons are incompetent, possessed of only one branch of the necessary qualifications, like birds with but one wing.” The good physician, they state, to be “a person of strict veracity, of the greatest sobriety and decorum, a man of sense and benevolence, his heart �
