If empirics abound in enlightened Christendom, where chemical analysis, scientific researches in materia medica and pharmacy, and anatomical demonstration and surgical operations almost daily bring to light new discoveries and inventions, what can be expected in a country where medical science has long since been in a state of absolute stagnation. Ignorant and unprincipled quacks, quite unacquainted with the rules of the Hindoo medical shastras, abound all over the country, which has for some years past been severely suffering from malarious fever of a virulent type, carrying death and devastation wherever it prevails.[100] They literally sport with the health of their patients, and the natural consequence is, hundreds and thousands of human beings are mercilessly sacrificed to their ignorance and cupidity. Not one in a hundred of those who call themselves _kobirajes_ is acquainted with the principles of physic as laid down in the standard medical works of the Hindoos. Some of them have a few nostrums of their own, the composition of which is unknown to every one but themselves. A Bengalee _kobiraj_ carries a miniature dispensary about him. He takes with him a small packet, containing different kinds of pills or powders, wrapped up in a piece of paper, in small doses which are commonly used twice a day with ginger, honey, betel, roots of doov-grass, &c. He seldom uses phials; liquids, when required, are made in a patient's own house. His medicines are chiefly made of drugs, but he has neither a proper classification of them, nor a complete system of botany. He uses, however, certain preparations of oil, which are sometimes beneficially administered in chronic cases. These preparations are rather expensive, selling from two to ten Rupees per pound. The popularity of some of these _kobirajes_ stands very high in Native public estimation. Almost every wealthy family in the interior as well as in the Town has its own physician. The fee of a quack in the villages is one Rupee on the first day of his visit, and he continues to attend twice daily until the patient recovers. When completely recovered, the physician gets one or two Rupees more, a suit of clothes and some provisions.