and Persians, considering them unalterable, none having the moral courage of publicly advancing and vindicating any new theory that might occur to them, furnished some wily ingenious authors with opportunities of engrafting or adding their own supposed discoveries upon the original works of the old practitioners, whose writings, to the regret of all, have thus become garbled and filled with spurious passages..

Subjoined is an extract from a work which professes to be a treatise on anatomy, and claiming for itself a divine origin.

"The fœtus consists of thirty-two parts: its height becomes six feet; the hairs of the head are 25,000,000 in number; those of the body 99,099,000: the nails are 20; the teeth 32; the cuticle which covers the skin of the body (when rolled up) is the size of a cherry; the muscles are 900; the arteries 900; the veins 17.000; the bones 300; the joints 300; the bones are filled with marrow and sperm. The boues are distributed as follows: 9 in the upper skull, 1 in the forehead, 1 in the nose, 2 in the eyes, 2 in the ears, 2 in the jaws; the teeth are 32; 1 bone in the chin, 7 in the neck, 2 collar-bones, 2 shoulder-bones, 4 in the lower arms, 64 in the hands, 14 in the breast, 24 ribs, 1 in the middle of the lower breast, 18 in the back, 2 hip bones, 2 posterior bones, 4 thigh bones, (so in original,) 4 bones in the legs, 4 knee-bones, 4 bones in the heels, 64 in the feet, 64 soft smaller feet bones. There are also 100 more attached to the inner bones."

According to this arrangement of the osseous system, instead of 300, there are 434 distinct bones in the human body. If you were to point out the discrepancy between the two statements, it would only excite a smile. The mistake would remain unaltered and be perpetuated, because the physician could not say whether the one or the other was right, or whether both numbers might not be wrong.

Thus in anatomy all is ignorance and mystery. The mists and mazes of antiquity, with all its glorious uncertainties and boastful pretensions and authority, remain to be swept away. After this first step has been taken, then a lasting foundation might be laid from imported European and American medical

science.

Chemistry is still a sealed casket of jewels, which possibly it will be the happiness of coming generations among them to see opened. Its beauties, even under the most common elementary forms, have yet to be unfolded and exhibited. An occasional pretender, however, has stepped on the platform of public notice, and declared with much vehemence that he has both seen and done wonders in the sublime and much vaunted science of alchemy. But like the philosophers of old, who have endeavoured to effect the transmutation of metals, and to discover a universal elixir for curing the whole round of human maladies, and for conferring longevity upon man, their names, their experi

ments and all, have justly been allowed to sink into the shades of a long-forgotten world of nonsense.

Of surgery they positively know nothing. Even the simple operation of phlebotomy they cannot, they dare not perform. When men have come begging to be bled, I have just inquired, why don't you go to your own doctors? The reply was: "O! thu nama lay boo, theken." That is, they know nothing about it,

sir.

sexes.

Among the domestic customs of the Burmese is that of boring, at an early age, a hole through the lobe of each ear of both These holes are gradually enlarged by the introduction. of successive pieces of thin twigs, till at length they become sufficiently large to admit a finger. In them, on particular occasions, gold ornaments are worn, or a bit of amber, glass, or polished marble. But the workmen or Coolies often insert their segars in them for convenience. Occasionally the lobe gets divided, or broken by some accident, when the man becomes filled with shame at his misfortune, or, if it be a woman, it is even worse. They will conceal it, as though it were the greatest deformity they could suffer. They will do anything in the way of trouble to have it united, but their own medical men are unequal to the task of helping them. In such cases, when they can, they apply to a foreign physician to join it by suture. Without flinching, they will sit to have it done; but if it were to perform any other operation, however trifling, except in a very few instances, the very sight of a lancet, scalpel, or pair of surgeon's scissors, would strike terror into them.

In old chronic swellings and tumours, they may, and sometimes do, in extreme cases, where there is much personal fortitude and courage, slightly scarify the part affected with a rudepointed, rough-edged knife, or resort to actual cautery with a heated iron. At times, too, a few leeches, or a blister is applied. But they never, as a general thing, make more than one application of this nature.

Midwifery is practised by old women, the men having nothing to do with it, unless to give a dose of medicine when needed. The manual part certainly could not be monopolized by more dangerous hands. As a specimen of their treatment it may be mentioned, that when any sort of obstruction arises, the most cruel methods are pursued for overcoming it. From the roof of a house a long band is suspended, after the fashion of a swing, the female is placed upon it, her face looking to the floor, and urged with all her might to press downwards, to force away the child, her back being pressed at the same time with the knee or foot of one of her sweating attendants. If this does not prove effectual, she is stretched upon her back and is squeezed

laterally along the sides by the hands of two old women, whilst a third places the heel of her foot on the abdomen, and thus makes pressure. Astringent and other washes are injected into the vagina with an instrument made of zinc and lead, resembling a miniature cannon, having rounded trunnions, by which it is grasped, and an ornamental piston rod. The sufferings of the poor injured woman no language can adequately portray. As might be expected, all such cases terminate in death. Happily they are not very numerous.

From time immemorial it has been the practice of these people to subject their women after parturition to a species of roasting for several days. Within the tropics, the heat at a certain season of the year is almost insufferable. To a high temperature is added a blazing fire, a few inches from which the parturient female is placed in a bed upon the floor, where she is kept for at least eight or ten days. After the birth of the child she is rubbed all over from head to feet with a stimulating yellow turmeric paste, to prevent her taking cold. The effect of the fire is said to excite secretion, and drain away all the noxious and impure fluids of the body.

Their notions of the development and growth of the fœtus are singularly crude, as displayed in the following quotation:

"At the first the fœtus is only water, not larger in the parent's womb than the drop detected with difficulty at the point of a hair of that sleek animal, the hyæna, after it has been immersed in oil clarified a hundred times, and from which the oil, so taken up, has been shaken one hundred times. The fœtus which is thus nothing but water, having become froth, (in this unchangeable way does it happen,) afterwards enters its third stage, and receives life and form; then the living fœtus becomes blended in its fourth stage; the two hands, the two feet and the head are produced and branch off into five extremities, the hair of the head and of the body, the ears, the eyes and the nose, are then formed."

The whole process is this: first, water; second, froth; third life and form; fourth, the branching, or growing out of the different members, as from a common centre which seems to be the trunk; and the fifth stage including the perfection of the head and the several limbs.

The periods of development here follow:

"The fœtus in its first stage of water is produced in fifteen days; its second stage is formed at the termination of one month; the third at the end of the second month; the fourth at the end of the third month; at the conclusion of four months, it branches forth into five extremities; at the fifth month the eyes and other members of sensation are formed. The foetus remains ten months* (three hundred days) within the parent's womb, and after remaining there as in a repository, it comes forth."

*Two hundred and ninety-four according to others.

The Burmese say, that man is formed of the four great elements of "Earth," " Fire," " Air," and "Water."

"There are four elements of which the human frame is composed. The first is earth, the second, water, the next fire, the last, air; and in this manner are they distributed: there are twenty portions, or members formed of earth; viz.: the hair of the head, the hair of the body, the nails, the teeth, the cuticle of the skin, the flesh, the veins, the bones, the marrow of the bones, the lungs, the heart, the liver, the spleen, the stomach and the bowels, both large and small. Twenty-two parts are formed of water, gall, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, indurated oil, tears, liquid oil, spittle, mucus, gluten, urine. Of fire, there are four parts; viz.: the embryo of fever, the principle of producing age, the embryo of melancholy, and the principle causing digestion. Of air there are six parts; the principle which occasions belching; that causing a breaking of wind; the embryo of disease in the stomach; the principle of circulation."

The practice of medicine seems to be followed only as an em pirical art, and is mixed up with considerable superstition, sacred and vulgar. The following is an example of the rules which guide them.

"If a physician is called to attend upon a patient who lives to the south of his house, that person's disease cannot be healed (by him:) if the patient resides to the southwest, he can be cured in three days: if to the west, the complaint can also be gradually cured: if to the north, the patient will not completely recover: if called from the northeast upon Ta-nen-la (i. e. Monday,) he must not attend; if from the north, the sick person will not recover; if called from the east on a Monday and presented with a liberal fee before going, the patient will recover in three days, if the spirit be propitiated by an offering of food placed on the east side of the house. There is sometimes a pulse felt between the thumb and index finger of the right hand, at such times the subject is under the influence of witchcraft, the disease therefore is not a real one; boiled rice, fried fish and a fragrant condiment being placed on the north side of the house, as an offering to the spirit, the complaint will disappear. When there is a pulse in the middle joint of the right thumb, beware! it is the work of a household evil spirit to cause dejection of mind. When there is a throbbing pulsation in the fourth finger, the intellect of the person is obscured, and the body is parti-coloured; a witch and the household spirit possess the person. When the blood-watchers of life (the pulse in the wrist and foot) vibrate strongly, it is caused by an evil spirit when they cease to beat, refrain from administering medicine-life is departing."

As the foregoing instructions to medical men are believed to be enjoined by divine authority, all reasoning as to the fitness or utility of the proposed cures is at once superseded. Their mystical influence, has become deep-rooted, from the acknowledged authority of accumulating ages, and though seemingly puzzling as a fact, that such a palpable chain of errors could have so long maintained its power, without a spirit to investigate, or a struggle to overthrow it, yet, unlike the gordian knot of the famous Phrygian chariot, it must be confessed that no Alexander has ever risen to cut it, and enfranchise the mind.

Every Burmese physician is strictly an empiric. Though

some of them are conversant with a long catalogue of simples, still they have but one or two remedies for each disease, and when these fail, their skill is at an end. They appear unable understandingly to adapt means to ends. All is blind chance. the use of the articles of the materia medica which they employ, they manifest but little judgment, and betray an imperfect acquaintance with their real virtues. Their manner of administering mercury, and other mineral medicines which enter into their materia medica, is open to the same objection.

In relation to Nosology, the whole circle of diseases is embraced under two grand classes. Their books of medical practice assert that "of the diseases to which the human frame is liable, there are ninety-six. Of which sixty-eight are wind complaints, and twenty-eight gall complaints. According to some others, there are eighty of the former, and sixteen of the latter." Symptomatology, which is the basis of good practice in any country, is but little understood. The meaning of symptoms, the difference between cause and effect, can hardly be intelligible, where there is such a notorious want of correct anatomical knowledge.

It is not a little amusing to witness the exploits of most of these warriors of physic. While a few of them appear to be deeply read in works on medicine, such as they are, and are otherwise generally intelligent, the mass are without a particle of book knowledge, and as ignorant almost as an untutored Indian. But there is this to be said in extenuation, that books are rather scarce with them, just as it was in Europe some two or three centuries ago, before the more general introduction of printing. A number, however, are collected together in some of the older Kyoungs, or monastries under the charge of the Bhoodist priests, where they are piled up for preservation as relics of the past, in large boxes, which are richly ornamented for this particular purpose.

The great field of medicine in Burmah, as in most other oriental countries, being entirely without any sort of barrier, or fence, in the shape of a legal test, or collegiate trial, every simpleton that pleases may ramble into its alluring precincts, to try his fortune. The only requisites for the office, are a brazen face, a flippant tongue, and a bag of drugs. If a Burman conceives to himself a desire to execute the functions of a doctor, he begins to practice at home. The first two or three cases are generally members of his own family; and having tried his ingenuity, he has perhaps been successful. As may be supposed this success is highly encouraging, and prompts him to march forward in his new career. cases were probably such as would have turned out favourably

The