পাতা:অক্ষিতত্ত্ব.djvu/১২

P R E F A C E ートニ*Sミニ一ー Much as the Indian branch of the medical profession is accused of apathy in conducting original and independent investigations, it can not be denied that there is a considerable activity in it for interpreting the great truths of the modern sciences to the Indian students through the vernaculars of the country. This activity is chiefly observable in Bengal, the birth-place of the first Medical College, established under the auspices of the British Government. The literature of modern medicine and the allied science; in Bengali, mostly contributed by the graduates of the Calcutta Medical College, constitutes one of its proudest trophics. Apart from other substantial benefits, which the maintenance of this College by the State has conferred upon the country, the service which it has rendered by nursing a class of men as the intellectual interpreters of the sciences of the West to the people of ‘the East, is, I humbly conceive, the best and most durable return for the outlay from tho national exchequer. Of the many branches of modern science, which have engaged the attention of Indian authors and translators, that which addresses itself to the treatment of the diseases of the eye, has not yet found a votary among them. It is therefore my humble wish to offer my allegiance to it. It is scarcely necessary for me to point out what an important function the eye performs in human organism: one has only to shut his own eyes to know"