Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/47

Rh the Asiatic Society, and is well known for his scientific attainments. His testimony is the more gratifying, because he is attached to the oriental class of opinions, and was one of the two members who seceded from the committee when it was resolved to take a decided course in favour of English.

The peculiar glory of the medical college, however, consists in the victory which it has obtained over the most intractable of the national prejudices, which often survives a change of religion, and was supposed to be interwoven, if any thing could be, with the texture itself of the Hindu mind. Brahmins and other high-caste Hindus may be seen in the dissecting-room of the college handling the knife, and demonstrating from the human subject, with even more than the indifference of European professional men. Operations at the sight of which English students not unfrequently faint, are regarded with the most eager interest, and without any symptom of loathing, by the self-possessed Hindu. Subjects for dissection are easily and unobjectionably obtained in a country in which human life is more than usually precarious, and where the respect felt for the dead is much less than in Europe. An injection of arsenic into the veins prevents that rapid de-