Hindu Medicine c5.s3.57

c5.s3.57

Of course, it is possible that behind traditional usage “ there lurks secret truth from which modern research might take its flight toward a new insight.” It has happened over and over again that the knowledge of old women on the basis of scientific investigation was proved to be correct.²⁷ “ Mother India and her aged daughter, traditional medicine with its treasure of materia medica ” may represent the old woman’s true knowledge. One may expect even better results from an examination of Hindu remedies than from that of Western prescriptions. For the latter dealt with items imported from the Mediterranean “ and had gone stale before they reached the mediaeval customer.” Their notions had become estranged from their original background and context through various migrations: