While I indulged in these sad meditations, and felt for my host while I felt no less for myself, I saw the physician approach who had been sent for.  He was a tall, thin man, with a quick step, a lively, piercing eye, a sallow complexion, and very courteous manners, and always willing to display the ready flow of words for which he was remarkable.  I felt great curiosity to witness the skill of this Lunar Aesculapius, and he was evidently pleased with the interest I manifested.  It turned out that he was well acquainted with the Brahmin; and learning from the latter my wish, he conducted me into the room of our sick host.  We found him lying on a straw bed, and strangely altered within a few hours.  The physician, after feeling his pulse, (which, as every country has its peculiar customs, is done here about the temples and neck, instead of the wrist)—­after examining his tongue, his teeth, his water, and feces, proposed bleeding.  We all walked to the door, and ventured to oppose the doctor’s prescription, suggesting that the copious evacuations he had already experienced, might make bleeding useless, if not dangerous.

“How little like a man of sense you speak,” said the other; “how readily you have chimed in with the prejudices of the vulgar!  I should have expected better things from you:  but the sway of empiricism is destined yet to have a long struggle before it receives its final overthrow.  I have attacked it with success in many quarters; but when it has been prostrated in one place, it soon rises up in another.  Have you, my good friend, seen my last essay on morbid action?”

The Brahmin replied, that he had not yet had an opportunity of meeting with it.

“I am sorry you have not,” said the other.  “I have there completely demonstrated that disease is an unit, and that it is the extreme of folly to divide diseases into classes, which tend but to produce confusion of ideas, and an unscientific practice.  Sir,” continued he, in a more animated tone, “there is a beautiful simplicity in this theory, which gives us assurance of its conformity to nature and truth.  It needs but to be seen to be understood—­but to be understood, to be approved, and carried into successful operation.”

The Brahmin asked him if this unit did not present different symptoms on different occasions.

“Certainly,” he replied:  “from too much or too little action, in this set of vessels or that, it is differently modified, and must be treated accordingly.”

“This unit, then,” said my friend, “assumes different forms, and requires various remedies?  Is there not, then, a convenience in separating these modifications (or forms, if you prefer it) from one another, by different names?”

“Stop, my friend; you do not apprehend the matter.  I will explain.”  At this moment two other gentlemen, of a grave aspect and demeanour, entered the room.  They also were physicians of great reputation in the city.  They appeared to be formal and reserved towards one another, but they each manifested still more shyness and coldness towards the learned Shuro.  They entered the sick chamber, and having informed themselves of the state of the patient, all three withdrew to a consultation.