Attack on the Ayurveda.

IN an article contributed by him to the Indian Medical Gazette, Lieutenant Colonel Sutherland is said to have described the Ayurveda as a curious blend of superstitious beliefs and practices. Sweeping generalisations like these carry their own condemnation and in the present case it is enough to confront the critic with the following testimony borne to the worth of the indigenous system by no less an authority than the late Surgeon General Pardey Lukis, to show the utter  untenableness of the position he has taken up with reference to things which he can have no adequate first hand knowledge:—“The longer I remain in India and the more I see of the country and the people, the more convinced I am that many of the empirical methods of treatment adopted by the Vaids and Hakims are of the greatest value and there is no doubt whatever that their ancestors knew, ages ago, many things which are nowadays being brought forward as new discoveries.”