“The Native principalities are now much more advanced in most respects than they were only a few years back. By coming into contact with the progressive civilization of adjoining British districts, the Governments of Native States were forced to advance; for they felt their existence would be imperilled. And this advance was most materially assisted by the successful endeavours made by the Indian Government to secure the better education of the young Indian princes and nobles. The Imperial Government also, and especially under Lord Mayo, enunciated care for the sick as one of the most urgent duties of the feudatory rulers of India. Owing to such measures, aided by the personal influence of the Political, and the assistance of the Medical Officers attached to the Native Courts, a hospital or dispensary has, amongst other features of civilization, been established at every large capital; while in some States ramifications of such central establishments have rendered the people almost as well off, in the matter of medical relief, as those in British territory. As it will not be necessary to refer again, except incidentally, to the Native States, I may here remark that all the medical institutions are supported at the cost of the Durbar or Government of each State. They are, as a rule, superintended by the European Medical Officer attached to the Political Residency, aided by native assistants.
“Although the recent condition of the Native States represents what formerly prevailed all over Hindustan, it must not be understood that the people were devoid of charity; only the charity of the well-to-do classes did not take the form of medical relief. In the absence of a qualified medical profession recognised by the State, the confidence felt in the physic of the ‘vaids’ and ‘hukeems’ was something akin to the faith of Byron, who without any such excuse designated medicine as ‘the destructive art of healing.’ Moreover, the organization of hospitals was not understood, and the necessary discipline of such establishments was foreign to the habits and ideas of the people. The poor (who now throng the hospitals of India), having had no experience of the advantages of such institutions, would probably not have resorted thereto had hospitals and dispensaries been opened under native control. So suspicious were the people on the first opening of a hospital in one of the Native States, that sweetmeats, of which they are very fond, were ordered to be given daily to each patient, as an encouragement to attend! So in former times the charitable preferred spending their money in sinking wells, in constructing serais or rest-houses for travellers, in endowing temples, and in feeding the poor, particularly Brahmins. In this manner, enormous sums have been disbursed and are still expended, especially in food for the destitute. This laudable charity of the Indians, although often confined to their own caste people, and to occasions of family festival, is one of the reasons why it has never been thought necessary to establish any system of poor-law relief in British India. Of late years native charity has been often directed towards building and endowing medical institutions, and many Indian gentlemen have given most liberally for such purposes.”
CHAPTER V.
MEDICINE IN CHINA, TARTARY, AND JAPAN.
Origin of Chinese Culture.—Shamanism.—Disease-Demons.—Taoism.—Medicine Gods.—Mediums.—Anatomy and Physiology of the Chinese.—Surgery.—No Hospitals in China.—Chinese Medicines.—Filial Piety.—Charms and Sacred Signs.—Medicine in Thibet, Tartary, and Japan.
Chief amongst the Mongolian peoples are the Chinese. Prof. Max Müller argues that the Chinese, the Thibetans, the Japanese, Coreans, and the Ural-Altaic or Turanian nations are in the matter of religion closely related.
Chinese culture has recently been declared by Professor Terrien de la Couperie, François Lenormant, and Sayce to be of Accadian origin. Hieratic Accadian has been identified with the first five hundred Chinese characters, and it is believed by Professor de la Couperie that the Chinese entered north-western China from Susiana, about the twenty-third century before Christ.[287]
In the Finno-Tartarian magical mythology, we have not only the link which connects the religion of heathen Finland with that of Accadian Chaldæa, but we discover what is of more importance in tracing the origin of the magic and medicine of the old civilizations of the world from a primitive and coarse cosmogony, such as we have examined in so many savage peoples.
As it is impossible to separate the ancient medical belief of a people from its religious conceptions, if we admit Prof. Max Müller’s theory, we must also hold that it embraces the medical notions of these peoples. And so we find that one of the striking characteristics of the Mongolic religions is an extensive magic and sorcery—Shamanism. Practically the gods and heroes of the poetry of these peoples are sorcerers, and their worshippers value above everything their magical powers. Taoism, a Chinese religion of great antiquity and respect, involves an implicit faith in sorcery; and the Chinese and Mongolians have degenerated Buddhism into Shamanism.[288]
Confucianism is the chief religion of the Chinese. It is simply a development of the worship of ancestors, which was the aboriginal religion of the country. All the Chinese are ancestor-worshippers, to whatever other native religion they may belong.[289]