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BIRMAH. 65
logicians, and take delight in investigating new subjects.
Their books ai-e numerous, some of them
written in the most flowing, beautiful style and much
ingenuity is manifested in the construction of their
stories."* Dr. Buchanan asserts that they possess
numerous historical works relating to the different
dynasties of their princes, the most celebrated of which
is the Maha-rajah-waynjee already referred to. They
have also translated histories of the Chinese and Siam-
ese, and of the kingdoms of Kathee, Koshan-pyee, Pegu,
Sammay, and Layn-zayn. On medicine, the Birmans
have several books : they divide diseases into ninetysix
genera. Mummy is a favourite article in their
pharmacopoeia. They are acquainted with the use of
mercury, but their remedies are mostly from the
vegetable kingdom, and chiefly of the aromatic kind.
Their practice is almost entirely empirical, and in
spite of every mode of indirect influence and preten-
sion, the medical class is in low estimation. ]
The Birman language appeai-s originally to have
been purely monosyllabic, but it has borrowed largely
from the Pali, and has formed many polysyllables from
its monosyllabic roots, according to the analogies of that
* Judson's Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Bir-
inan Empire, p. 4.
t One curious custom of the Birman physicians may be mentioned
here. If a young woman is dangerously ill, the doctor and
her parents frequently enter into an agreement, the doctor under-
taking to cure her. If she lives, the doctor takes her as his pro-
perty ; but if she dies, he pays her value to the : parents for, in
the Birman dominions, no parent parts with his daughter, whethei
to be a wife or a concubine, without a valuable consideration.
" I do not know," adds Dr. Buchanan, " if the doctor may sell
the girl again, or must retain her in his family ; but the number of
fine young women which I saw in the house of a doctor at Meaday,
makes me think the practice to be very common." Asiat. Res.,
vol. vi. p. 304.
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