MEDICAL SCIENCE, NO. II

Luxuriating in the "mental oasis" of Chinese literature in general,
and the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" in particular, we
have been tempted to carry our researches still further in that
last-mentioned valuable work. It would have been sufficient to establish
the reputation of any European treatise on medical science had it
contained one such simple and efficacious method for extracting teeth
as we gave in our chapter on Dentistry; but Chinese readers are not so
easily satisfied, and it takes something more than mere remedies for
coughs, colds, lumbago, or the gout, to ensure a man a foremost place
among the Galens of China. Even a chapter on "Extraordinary Diseases,"
marvellous indeed in the eyes of the sceptical barbarian, is not
enough for the hungry native mind; and nothing less than a whole
section of the most miraculous remedies and antidotes, for and against
all kinds of unheard-of diseases and poisons, would suffice to stamp
the author as a man of genius, and his work as the offspring of
successful toil in the fields of therapeutic science. Thus it comes
about that the author of the "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions"
gathers together at the close of his last volume such items of
experience in his professional career as he has not been able to
introduce into the body of his book, and from this chapter we purpose
to glean a few of the most striking passages.

To begin with: Mr Darwin will be delighted to hear, if this should
ever meet his eye, that the growth of tails among mankind in China is
not limited to the appendage of hair which reposes gracefully on the
back, and saturates with grease the outer garment of every high or low