Page:An address delivered to the graduates admitted at the Convocation of the Senate of the University of Madras, held on Monday, April 5, 1878 (IA b22350172).pdf/6

 of people! Some future Historian looking at these figures might jump at the conclusion that this continent, during the commencement of the 19th century, was singularly fortunate as regards health, and that the fell pestilences which in some other parts of the world proved so disastrous, were here unknown. Yet what a fallacy such a conclusion would be! As the Principal of the Medical College, this fact is of singular interest to me, and it has often been present to my mind, not only that the number of Native students who presented themselves to study medicine, apart from those entering the service of Government, was singularly small, but that the Brahmins practically held altogether aloof. What was the cause of this?

If we turn to the ancient History of India, we find that medicine, far from being a despised science, was one of the most honoured. Next to the vocation of Priest, that of the Doctor seems to have been the most respected. Nay, I am not sure it was, in the most ancient times, second even to that of the priest, for I find in your ancient books that one of the fourteen "ratnas" or precious objects which the gods produced by churning the ocean after the deluge was a “Learned Physician." In the Mahabharata is an account of this ocean churning for the recovery of lost treasures, and the one most desired