Physicians are referred to several times in the _Ordinances of Menu_. In Lect. iv. 179 we are advised that “we should never have a dispute with a physician.” We are to avoid eating the “food of a physician and hunter, if a cruel man,” etc. (Lect. iv. 212). “The food of a physician is pus” (_Ibid._ 220). In Lect. ix. 284, “A fine (is set) for all physicians treating (a case) incorrectly: in (the case of creatures) not human (this is) the first, but in (the case of) human beings the medium (fine).”[235]
The Brahmans believed there was a remedy for every disease, in consequence of which they made a very careful examination of the vegetable kingdom, and so discovered a great number of medicines. If a medicine were efficacious in curing the patient, they invariably supposed it was due to the sanctity of the individual, and the divine pleasure which endowed him with it. It is therefore exceedingly difficult to obtain information, as it is believed that the medicine would lose its effect if the secret of the cure were divulged to others. From these selfish motives, the knowledge of the properties of many valuable remedies have been lost. Dr. Wise says, according to the Brahmans, there are nine secrets which should not be revealed to any one: these are the age of a person; his wealth; family occurrences; his bad actions, or those which reflect shame or dishonour upon him; his relations with his wife; his prayers to his tutelar gods; his charities; and the virtues of nostrums, the ingredients of which are known to him.
Yet priests, says Baas, from the Brahman caste, and the sub-castes, the Vaisya and Vaidya, officiated for a long time as teachers of medicine and as physicians. The Vaidyas, as the higher of the two sub-castes, included the physicians proper; while the Vaisyas, or lower caste, furnished nurses.[238]
When Buddhism passed into modern Hinduism (750-1000 A.D.) the rules of caste became stricter, and the old fetters were reimposed, and the Brahmans returned to their ancient principles which forbade them to contaminate themselves with blood or morbid matter; they withdrew from all practice of medicine, and left it entirely to the Vaidyas. After a time these also shrank from touching dead bodies. Then public hospitals were abolished when Buddhism fell. The Mohammedan conquests which began about 1000 A.D. introduced foreign practitioners of physic, who derived their knowledge from Arabic translations of Sanskrit medical classics and monopolised the patronage of the Mohammedan aristocracy.[239]