Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/142

82 district, and they are held in very low estimation. There is also a class of persons who profess to treat sores, but they are totally illiterate and destitute of science, nor do they perform any operation. They deal chiefly in oils. The only practitioner in surgery was an old woman, who had become reputed for extracting the stone from the bladder, which she performed after the manner of the ancients.

According to Dr. Buchanan the science of the Arabs has been exceedingly neglected in this district, so that very few even of the kazis are supposed to understand the koran or any Arabic work on grammar, law or metaphysics. He did not hear of one man who attempted to teach any of these branches of learning, and he expresses a doubt whether even one man employed in administering the Mahomedan law and born in the district was tolerably well-versed in the subject, or so well informed or liberally educated as the common attornies in a country town or England.