Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/52

38 In 1828, Dr. was appointed Anatomical lecturer in the Sanskrit College, with a Pundit assistant. The students not only handled the bones of the human skeleton without reluctance, but in some instances themselves performed the dissection of the softer parts of animals—‘an hospital was proposed to be connected with it, as also that the passed pupils should be attached to jails.’

In 1842-43, Dr. Mouat, the Secretary of the Council of Education, circulated a minute stating that, on the ground of the expense of supplying Sub-Assistant Surgeons to the millions of Bengal, it was necessary to have a class trained through the Bengali language, ‘men who would be the only checks on the common vendors of poison:’ to consist of one hundred persons on scholarships of five rupees monthly, trained by two professors selected from the passed students: when their studies were completed, to be located at their own choice at thannas, ‘thus increasing tenfold the usefulness of the Medical College, by bringing the blessings of European medicine to the hearths and homes of the opprest in remote stations, where Government dispensaries could not be established, and thus forming a special medical Police.’ The Council of Education cordially agreed with the plan. , noted for this Oriental scholarship, proposed in 1844 Rupees 1,000 as a prize for the best translation into Bengali of a treatise on Anatomy, Materia Medica, and the treatment of the principal diseases prevalent in India. In his proposal the Babu stated instruction must be given through the Vernacular; the natives studying through an English medium, ‘have neither time, nor disposition, nor means to communicate to their countrymen the knowledge they possess.’

In January 1852, Lord Dalhousie, on the proposal of the Bengal Government and the Professor of the Medical College, passed the following Resolution:—

"“The President in Council observes that hitherto the stations and Hospitals in Bengal as well as the North-Western Provinces and Punjab have been supplied with Native Doctors from the Hindustani class in the Medical Colleges, but that, with extension of Territory and augmentation in the number of Medical Institutions, &c., the demand tor Native Doctors has considerably increased. To supply this demand, it is proposed to establish a Bengalee class of Native Doctors at the Medical College at a cost of Rupees 605, as noted on the margin.”"

This class has been a great blessing in the villages of Bengal, affording Medical aid to numbers for low fees; it has been a pecuniary success; some of the ex-students make by fees as much