Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s3.2

c6.s3.2

It is not as if nothing at all is known of the various accounts reproduced in this volume. Chapters I, II, V and VI dealing with astronomy and mathematics are perhaps known to many concerned scholars. The accounts dealing with the manufacture of paper, the composition of the ‘Madrass Mortar’ and Iron Works at Ramanakapettah are possibly known to a still wider circle. Even the practice of inoculation against the smallpox is known to have existed in ancient times in India, for, according to one modern writer: ‘Preventive inoculation against the smallpox, which was practised in China from the eleventh century, apparently came from India.’50 Something also seems to be known about the manufacture of iron and steel in Salem through the writings of it by Campbell, the Assistant Surveyor General, Madras. Ranade himself seems to have been fairly well informed about the export of *wootz* to England and other countries, though he leaves the time vague