Contemporary Medical Superstitions

and relief in time of sickness?of their castes, their tenets, and their practices, and any one so disposed might glean from the Indian medical periodicals of the last half century materials for a very instructive essay on the subject. We hear, on the one hand, of a physician caste, learned in the traditions of a past era, holding as an heir-loom an empirical knowledge of remedies, which we should be fortunate in discovering and wise in using ; we hear, on the other hand, of ignorant pretenders who trade on the frailties of humanity, and by mischievous interference aggravate those maladies of which they know not the cure. We are aware that the people place faith in superstitious observances and practices which we know to be debasing and futile, and that there are not wanting