0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

INDIA. 1 5
children or old men, timorous people, servants of the king,
crafty or feeble folk, calumniators of doctors, poor, miser.-
able or irritable people, orphan children or persons who
conceal their illnesses or are not supervised in their actions."
He Very earnestly warns him however against " gossiping
or jesting with women or taking any presents from them
with the exception of some light refreshment." Further
he gives the shrewd, if somewhat unkind, advice " only to
treat such persons as have curable diseases but to avoid
any cases of incurable disease and generally to give up
every patient who is not cured at the end of a year's treat­
ment, for curable diseases commonly become incurable in
a year."
CHARAKA* shows still greater caution in recommending
the doctor " not to order any remedies for persons disliked
by the king or people or who are themselves hostile to
the king or people ; and moreover, very deformed persons,
or such as are corrupt, difficult, wild or intractable are not to
receive advice or help, nor are the dying, or women either,
except only in the presence of their lord or guardian."
CHARAKAf fills his pupils with contempt for those people
" who making a great display in the train of a learned
doctor eagerly seek after opportunities for practice. No
sooner have these people heard of a patient than they
hurry off to him, fill his ears with their own medical
ability and are unceasing in their enumeration of the
failures of the attending doctor. They try to win over the
friends of the patient by little attentions, flatteries, and
innuendoes and they extol their own modesty. If they
happen to have secured a case they deem it an occasion
for making perpetual visits. In order to conceal their
want of skill—being unable to cure the complaint 1 —they
attribute their want of success'to the absence of the neces­
sary means and nursing, and to the patient's neglect of
medical injunctions. If they notice that things are going
badly with the patient they at once make off. • If they find
* Op. cit., S. 448. f i, 29, in EpT;H op. cit., S. 452.