The classic Tibetan literature appears to consist in two or three great collections, or cyclopædias, in many volumes, the greater part translated in remote times from ancient Sanscrit works. From the abstracts given in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, by the one European who has mastered the subject, Alexander Csoma de Körös,[17] these books appear to be a dreary wilderness of puerile metaphysics and misplaced labour. [17] This very remarkable person, a native of Pesth, travelled to the East about thirty years ago, with the view of tracing the original birthplace of the Hungarian race, which he conceived was to be found in Tibet. Moorcroft, on one of his expeditions, whilst resident at Ladakh, encountered him travelling in the garb of an Armenian, and obtained for him from the khalun, or minister, permission to reside in the monastery of Zanskar, (south-west of Lé). Here he spent several years mastering the Tibetan literature, and composing a grammar and dictionary of the language. This great work was carried on when, for four months, the thermometer was below zero, in a room nine feet square, and without a fire! He afterwards proceeded to Calcutta, and resided there till 1841 or 1842, engaged, under some patronage from the Bengal government and Asiatic Society, in publishing the works above mentioned, and many other notices of Tibetan literature. In 1842 he visited the hill-station of Darjeeling, in sanguine expectation of being able to prosecute a long-meditated journey to Lhassa, but shortly after his arrival was seized with fever, and died. According to M. Huc, the Lama physicians reckon 440 maladies affecting the human frame, neither more nor less. Their medical books, which the students of the faculty have to learn by heart, consist of a mass of aphorisms, more or less obscure, and a number of recipes. Most of their medicines are vegetable simples, generally mild and inoffensive. The number of their "simples," however, includes "_laudamy_ and _calamy_." At least, they have the art of preparing mercury, and use it as a specific, producing salivation. This result they promote by gagging the patient with a stick. Their diagnosis they derive principally from the pulse, professing to discover the seat of disease from its peculiar vibratory motion rather than its frequency. They have not the Chinese horror of bleeding, and practise cupping by help of a cowhorn and oral suction. Small-pox is held in great dread; indeed, they scarcely attempt to treat it, but endeavour to save the uninfected by cutting off all communication at the risk of starving the sufferers. The infected house or village is often razed to the ground.