A correspondent thus writes: Regarding the native treatment of
diseases, one of the most curious things I ever witnessed was a
half-clad native shouting through the streets of a country town:
‘Does any one want back his sight?—one rupee only!’ as if he were
hawking fruits or sweetmeats; and, to my astonishment, a patient soon
presented himself to be operated on for cataract. There and then
standing in the bazaar, the itinerant oculist took out his penknife
and performed the operation in a few minutes, bound up the man’s
eyes, and telling him to keep in the dark for a fortnight, received
his fee of one rupee, and shouted his war-cry for more patients. The
operation was almost unvaryingly successful; one instance among my
servants being a woman of eighty, who had charge of my fowl-house, and
had for many a day been sightless, except to distinguish light from
darkness, and who in this way was successfully operated upon. Besides
this operator are bone-setters, and medical rubbers male and female,
especially represented by the hereditary low-caste _accoucheuse_ of
each village, whose skill in shampooing is such an aid in her lowly
calling—as the natives regard it—as to supplant much of the useless
medicine and enforced rest of more civilised countries, and save
endless mischief and suffering to her sex. What skill they have is of
course almost purely traditional. None of the science of the world
or British usage has yet altered in the slightest degree either the
customs of the native or his horror at the idea of male physicians for
women—especially in certain ailments—and their wonder at our obtuseness
and disregard of propriety on so delicate a point. To supply a vacancy
so long unfilled, lady-doctors have now appeared on the scene, who, it
is hoped by reaching the zenanas, may reach the real source through
which a higher enlightenment in India is possible. An immense field
is open to them along with every encouragement; and were but some of
the many young ladies at home who are straining health for a future
pittance in one or other of the spheres of teaching, to turn their
attention in this direction, they would find an opening of wider
and greater utility before them, and a prospect of large and rapid
emolument.