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The work is much read in schools. The following are specimens :

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Among the four castes, if the highest be without learning, he is the lowest of all.

A cat has neither austere devotion nor benevolence. To beg is the proper occupation of those who have nothing.

To give to those who have nothing is the duty of those who have.

The idiot who gives up his weapons and his money, into the hand of another, is chaff."

Viringsesar Satakam. விரிஞ்சேசர் சதகம்.

8vo. 36 pp. 2 as. By Supparaya Seddiyar. 19th cent. 100 stanzas on moral subjects addressed to Siva, worshipped at Vanipuri.

CLASS D. SCIENCE.

The Hindus enumerate 64 arts and sciences. A list of them is given in Winslow's Dictionary, p. 258. Physical science receives little attention. The principal branches enumerated are astronomy, chiefly for astrological purposes, medical science, alchemy and chemistry.

SECTION I. GENERAL VIEW.

On General Knowledge.

Lÿÿ.12mo. 48 pp. Palamcottah. By Rev. C. Rhenius. Out of print.

Tattuvanul Surukkam.

awjegieù. 12mo. 156 pp. Nagercoil (out of print). On Astronomy, Natural History, &c. in question and answer.

On the Sub-Divisions of Knowledge.

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கள். 18mo. 40 pp. 3 as. Madras School Book Society's Depot. Translated from Dr. Ballantyne's work. Siruvar Kalvi Tumai சிறுவர் கல்வித்துணை. 12mo. 82 pp. Nagercoil. Catechism of general knowledge. SECTION II. NATURAL SCIENCE.

This department is almost a total blank so far as the Tamils themselves are concerned. The very few

works which have been printed were chiefly prepared by Europeans or under their influence.

Natural Philosophy.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Fr. 12mo. 118 pp. Palamcottah Press. By the Rev. E. Sargent. The properties of matter and laws of motion. Chiefly from Drs. Arnott and Golding Bird. Out of print; but an enlarged edition in progress.

Catechism of Natural Philosophy. Fr வினாவிடை. 12mo. 44 pp. 4 as. Palamcottah Press. By the Rev. E. Sargent.

Joyce's Scientific Dialogues. Part I. Madras School Book Society. 14 as.

Lecture on Natural Philosophy, sri WIT GOT சாஸ்திரவிஷயமான உபன்னியாஸம். 18mo. 32 pp.

Madras.

Astronomy.

THE ORIENTAL ASTRONOMER. Fr. 8vo. சோதி சாஸ்திரம்.8vo. Tamil, 177 pp. English translation, 145 pp. 1 Re. American Mission, Jaffna. By Rev. H. R. Hoisington. A complete system of Hindu Astronomy, accompanied with a translation and numerous explanatory notes. Hall's Outlines of Astronomy. H‡ hål. 12mo. 88 pp. Palamcottah Press. 4 as. Edited by Rev. T. Spratt.

Astronomy. CF. 16mo. 40 pp. C. V. E. S. 1 anna. Illustrative woodcuts.

Wild Animals. வனவிலங்கியல். Nagercoil.

Natural History.

Out

of print.

Domestic Animals.

i. 12mo. 65 pp.

மச்சவியல்.

Nagercoil, (1836). Out of print.

Fishes. Lau. 12mo. 24 pp. Nagercoil. Out of print.

The only work on Natural History in Tamil at present available, so far as known to the compiler, is a

Reading Book published by Government. It is noticed under the head of Educational works.

SECTION III. MEDICAL SCIENCE.

This is a favorite study among the Tamils. Books on the subject have a large circulation.

The Hindus regard the Ayur Veda,* reckoned to be a portion of the fourth or Atharva Veda, as the oldest work on Medicine and the highest standard. It is said to have consisted originally of one hundred sections, each containing one thousand stanzas. Only fragments of the treatise are now procurable. The works of Charaka and Susruta, who are said to have lived about the time of Rama, are regarded as of great authority. Their real dates are not known.†

Agastya is fabled to have written upwards of fifty treatises on Medicine, Alchemy, and Magic in Tamil. They were composed at different periods, some of them after the arrival of Europeans in India. Dr. Green, Medical Missionary, Jaffna, has favored the compiler with the titles of 117 Tamil works on Medicine, some of them of considerable size, and the list might be extended. As manuscripts are not included in the Catalogue, the names of only those which have been printed are given below.

Medical Science at present among the Hindus is much in the same state as it was in Greece in the time of Hippocrates.

Dr. Webb in his Lecture on "The Historical Relations of Ancient Hindu with Greek Medicine," has the following remarks:

"In the days of Hippocrates the elementary theory was the only one known in Greece. that fire, air, earth, and water, stituents of our bodies.

He as well as Plato taught were the elemental conHis views, and those which

* A work bearing the title of அகஸ்தியர் ஆயுள் வேதபாஷியம்

exists in Tamil.

† Wilson's Works, Vol. III. p. 272.

Pythagoras entertained of health and disease, precisely accord with Plato's and the Hindu Susruta's. When we remember also that Pythagoras introduced Brahminical institutions into Greece; that he as well as Plato believed in the transmigration of souls; that Hindoos never travelled, but Greeks did; we can have very little doubt, that India was the source whence the Greeks derived their systems of philosophy and of medicine. The analogy between the Hindoo and Greek systems of medicine is certainly much too close to be the result of accident." p. 9.

Wilson thus estimates the medical science of the Hindus :

"It might easily be supposed, that their patient attention, and natural shrewdness, would render the Hindus excellent observers; whilst the extent, and fertility of their native country would furnish them with many valuable drugs and medicaments. Their Diagnosis, accordingly, appears to define and distinguish symptoms with great accuracy, and their Materia Medica is sufficiently voluminous. They have also paid great attention to regimen and diet, and have a number of works on the food and general treatment, suited to the complaint, or favourable to the operations of the medicine administered. To these subjects are to be added the medical treatment of diseases-on which subject they have a variety of compositions, containing much absurdity, with much that is of value."*

Ignorance of anatomy, from prejudice against dissection, has been a great drawback. The anatomical knowledge of the Hindus, Dr. Webb remarks, " may be judged of by a single sentence:-viz., the navel is the origin of all the vessels, and is the principal seat of life."+

The body is said to contain three humors, air, bile, and phlegm, which are the pillars or supports of the system. If deranged they are the cause of disease and death. There are 80 diseases caused by derangements of the air; 40 of bile; 20 of phlegm; and 16 by the combination of the derangements of these humors.

* Wilson's Works, Vol. III, p. 270.

+ Hindu System of Medicine by Wise, pp. 43, 194, 214.

The Hindu system of therapeutics is much the same as that of Galen, thus described by Dr. Paris :

"He conceives that the properties of all medicines are derived from what he calls their elementary or cardinal qualities, heat, cold, moisture and dryness. Each of these qualities is again subdivided into four degrees, and a plant or medicine, according to his notion, is cold or hot in the first, second, third, or fourth gradation; if the disease be hot, or cold in any of these four stages, a medicine possessed of a contrary quality, and in the same proportionate degree of elementary heat, or cold, must be prescribed."

Dr. Webb adds, after quoting the above :—

"This is a strange web of philosophical fiction! Yet a general belief in the hot and cold inherent qualities of medicines at this day pervades the whole of India. The most illiterate cooly, as well as the most learned Pundit, explains the action of medicines upon this Galenical principle only." p. 16.

The Tamil medical works are full of superstition. Numberless charms and incantations are prescribed. The ignorant empirics encourage their use, partly to conceal own want of skill-representing that the medicines administered were of the most appropriate character, but they were counteracted by spells.

The Madras Medical College is raising up native Medical Practitioners of superior grade. Men of a humbler class are very much wanted for the middle and lower orders of the people. It is gratifying that a commencement has been made in this direction by Medical Missionaries. Dr. Green has laboured successfully at Jaffna for several years. Dr. Lowe has made a hopeful beginning in South Travancore ; Dr. Paterson is to commence an Institution at Madras in March, 1866.

Good medical works in the vernacular are a great desideratum. Dr. Green has already published two or three treatises, noticed below, and he has others in progress. Dr. Waring has also prepared a very good book on "Bazar Medicines and their Uses." English

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