MEDICAL MARVELS IN CHINA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10238, 30 August 1909, Page 6

MEDICAL MARVELS IN CHINA.

It is the custom for a'Chinaman to visit his barber every week to have a, general overhauling. First, the head and face are shaved ; second, the ears are scraped and cleaned with a small brush made of duck's hair: third, the. upper and lower eyelids are scraped with a dull-edged knife, all granulations being smoothed away, alul then an application is made with a duck's hair brush of salt solution. This is the reason, says in writer in the Medical Kccord, why you will find so much blindness in China. They take no antiseptic measures whatever. All instruments are held in the operator's mouth during the process of operation. Finally the patient's hack is massaged, and after paying a fee of three cents and no tip he leaves the shop, feeling clean outside, but now must consult His regular physician. After going through the usual examination, which is a form of military inspection, the doctor diagnoses and case and treats it unless a devil happens to jump' down the patient's throat. If this lias happened the doctor can do the patient no good until he promises to set off . 100 firecrackers and to make a daily visit to the joss house. This done he receives the usual pills for those vacated by the devil. These pills may consist of spotted rhinoceros horn, said to be a wonderful cure for intestinal troubles. The spotted Thinocerous horns came from Southern China, and in the market at Singapore a singlo specimen will bring £7. Tiger hones when ground to a powder and mixed with Chinese wine make a great blood tonic, which is used by allclasses of Chinamen in Northern China* The recipe is held by a firm in Shanghai that lias become very wealthy by the sale of this tonic. Old deer horns arc boiled down to make, the medicinal glue which binds the fifty ingredients composing the average Chinese pills. As in these yon may get anything from a pinch of gunpowder to powdered cobra tail dust, it is not the fault of Wong-Yik-Chce if just the right kind of specific escapes the patient. Equal in medicinal efficacy to the above are three high-grade tjg;er remedies, the eyeball, liver, and blood. As may be imagined, tiger eyeball, the genuine article, can be prescribed for -only the exceedingly wealthy Chinese. Similarly the liver when dried and reduced to a. powder is worth its weight in gold all over China. Tiger blood when evaporated to a solid at a temr perature of 110 degrees and. taken as a powder is believed by Asiatics to transform a craven.into a hero. After the patient has made the rounds of the barber and .travelling physician he now looks up his dentist, whom he will find on any street corner in all large Chinese cities. You are greatly impressed by the seriousness of this gentleman, who is always reading and thinking of his, collection of some 2000 teeth on a table, and a few bottles of _ some secret drugs, which upon inquiries a Chinese inberpreter told a visitor contained the. moisture of the inner side of an old coffin which was collected after being buried some ten years. A dentist in China is called a "boxer" by all 'Chinamen, * for lie is suppos.ed to have great strength in his arms and hands, and also some great magic power. I