Stenzler and others have thought it possible that Susruta borrowed his system of medicine largely from the Greeks, and they say that so far as chronology is affected by it there would be nothing surprising in the circumstance. But Weber asserts[247] that no grounds whatever exist for this supposition; on the contrary, there is much to tell against such an idea. None of the contemporaries of Susruta has a name with a foreign sound, and the cultivation of medicine is assigned by Susruta and other writers to the city of Benares. The weights and measures to be employed by the physician are those of the eastern provinces, which never came into close contact with the Greeks, and it was first in these parts where medicine received its special cultivation. In the general treatment of disease, the Hindus paid great attention to diet, so as to promote the just balance of the elements and humours, as they considered that the generality of diseases are produced by derangements in the humours. Many of their statements on dietetics show a keen observation. If management of diet failed to cure the disorder, the patient was directed to abstain from food altogether for a time. Should this also fail, recourse was had to ejecting the corrupted humours by emetics, purgatives, or bleeding. Even the healthy were advised to take an emetic once a fortnight, a purgative once a month, and to be bled twice a year at the change of the seasons. The Hindus observed the “critical days” which have long been recognised by physicians everywhere. Pythagoras says the Egyptians observed them, and Hippocrates employed the term κρασις when the humoral pathology was in vogue. The Hindus thought that all diseases divide naturally into two classes of the sthenic and asthenic types. In the one there was excess, in the other deficiency of excitement. Health consists in a happy medium. All the Asiatic nations hold this opinion. Their remedies consequently were stimulating or cooling, as the type of the malady demanded. Pepper, bitters, and purgatives were stimulants. Stomachics, as _chiraitá_, paun mixed with lime, bathing and cold were cooling remedies.[248] The sages of antiquity have handed down to us the qualities which constitute a good physician. He must be strictly truthful, and of the greatest sobriety and decorum; he must have no dealings with any women but his own wife; he must be a man of sense and benevolence, of a charitable heart, and of a calm temper, constantly studying how to do good. Such a man is a good physician if, in addition to this, he constantly endeavours to improve his mind by the study of good books. He is not to be peevish with an irritable patient; he must be courageous and hopeful to the last day of his patient’s life; always frank, communicative, and impartial, he is yet to be rigid in seeing that his orders are carried out.