The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-03-12
NOT NEW AFTER ALL.
SUPPOSED DISCOVERIES THAT WERE
KNOWN AGES AGO.
Hindoo Claim That the Ancicnts Knew
Far More Than Is Credited to Them.
Reference to Wendell Phillips Lecture
"The Lost Arts"


on 'The Lost Arts"
A learned Indian prince, Thakore Snhib
O. Gondal, is the author of history of
Aryan medical science issued from the
london press. This book advances some
remarkable claims on behalf of Hindoo
/ science and civilization.
Prince Thakorc asserts that the grantlest
( discoveries OF western medical genius. such
as vaccination, an@sthesia and antiscptic
/ surgery, were all practiced among the Hin.
/ zoos many centuries ago. He declares that
in the "Ayur Ncda, " or "Science of Life, 8"
which is the most ancient of all Brahnin
books on medicine, nearly all the best
modern methods of medical diagnosis as
well as of practical surgery are fully set
forth. The circulation of the blood, which
NC say was discovered by Harvey, is said
to be fully set forth in this ancient volume
of the Hindoo scriptures. Prince Thakore
also cites historical evidence to show that
crhnial and abdominal surgical operations
OF the most difficult kind, such as we have
supposed were never performed until with
In the last 80 years, were done 1 900 years
ago in the land of Buddha. He points to
the record of the trephining of King Bhoia
of Dhar who lived about A. d. 977, to re-
lieve him of severe pains in his head. The
record clearly states that the king was rem
dcrcd unconscious, his Uranium opened, tie
cause of the trouble removed from the
brain, the wound closed up and his trouble
completely cured. Jivaka, who was Bud
dha's own physician, performed similar
operations
Such claims tend to shake the self esteem
of western peoples as the wisest and most
highly inventive that have ever occupied
the earth and to cast "a doubt upon their
beast that they are "the heirs of all the
ages in the foremost files of time" 1t is
no new thing, however for us to be told
that al light travels from the east to the
west and not from the west to the east.
We speak of Asia as ''the cradle of the
race, and so it undoubtedly was. We
need not be surprised therefore If, as A STA
becomes better known and its antiquities
more closely inquired into, we should find
that much of the supposed new knowledge
of the west was familiar in the east when
the world was young. Wendell Phillips
most celebrated lecture was entitled "The
Lost Arts. :" Curiously enough, it is not
included in the standard edition of his pub
liShed works. A-pamphlet copy of it, pub
Hshed 20 years ago, is hard to find. The
famous Massachusetts orator very largely
forestalled the claims of Prince Thakore.
He boldly declared that of 100 marvellous
things known to the nineteenth century 90
OF them had been anticipated by the an
clients. He pointed more particularly to
mechanical arts and inventions. He
quoted Pliny to show that Nero had
ring with a gem in it through which
he looked and watched the sword play of
the gladiators in the arena more clearly
n OIL ct,-ln 30
glass unknown to us moderns.
The use of microscopes of immense
power In ancient Egypt, Persia and Greece
is fairly pr2sv liable, because there is gem
shown ut Fan IA, once worn on the finger
OF Michael Angelo, the engraving whcreon
is 1000 years old and which reveals the |
figures of seven women only with the aid
OF strong magnifying glass. Sir Henry
Rawlinson brought home from Nineveh a .
stone about go inches dong and 10 inches |
wide containing a whole treatise on matho-
matics that was utterly illegible without a
And if it cannot be read with
out microscope it could not have been
engraved without similar aid Mr.. Phillips
ayerrcd that the art of coloring reached a
perfection among the ancients far beyond
our own. The burned city of Pompeii was
a city of stucco. The exteriors of the
walls and all its buildings were of
stucco, and the stucco was stained with
tyrian purple, the royal color of ar
tiquity. The city has been buried /, 800
years yet Whenever thI- ss.-alls Of one of its
houses arc dug out the Val purple flames
up to view with II great deal richer hue
than any we can produce. Evidently the
l'ompeiians possessed Il secret for making
last colors that we have not. When the
Ipcnntipn no ,,rl
the emperor of China, they brought home
wrought metal vessels OF every
kind, and European metal workers CON
.essed their inability to reproduce them.
Sheffield steel is an English boast, hut
it will not bear the atmosphere of India
without gliding. Yet the Damascus blades
used in the crusades were not gilded, and
they are as bright and keen today as they
were eight centuries ago. There was one
shown at the London exhibition in 1862
-he point OF which could be made to touch
the hilt and which could be put into the
'cabbard like a corkscrew and bent every
way without breaking. The best steel in
-he world today does not come from either
Europe or America, but from the Puniab.
Sir Walter Scott in his "Tales of the
Crusaders" describes q meeting between
Richard CUur de Lion and Saladin, in
which the English monarch is made to
hink that Saladin practices the black art
because the latter takes an eiderdown pill
ow from the sofa and causes it to fall in
wo pieces by drawing his keen blade I
Icross it. Travellers in India tell of seeing ]
1indoos throw handfuls of floss silk into ,
he air and cut them in pieces with their
Inc edged sabers. There is no steel made
n western workshops of that quality. So,
wit Ia no, t.Nf Y.
imposed 30 years ago that there were no
lncient glass factories, but the Pompeian '
revealed n workshop full of I
round glass, window glass, cut glass and &
olored glass q every variety. Baltimore c
sun. ,
Mr.. and Mrs. Zangwill.