A CHINESE PUFF.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 47, 21 November 1891, Page 605

A CHINESE PUFF.

The ‘ puli’medical ’ is well understood in China —nowhere better. A sample of a ‘ Fairy Recipe for Long Life,’ cited by a writer in The < 'ornhill, is heralded by the statement that that nostrum * has come down to us from a physician of the Ming Dynasty.’ A certain official was journeying in the hill country when he saw a woman passing southward over the mountains as if Hying. In her hand she held a stick, and she was pursuing an old fellow of a hundred years. The mandaiin asked the woman, saying, ‘ Why do you beat that old man ?’ ‘ lie is my glandson,’ she answered ; ‘ for I am five hundred years old, and he one hundred ami eleven ; he will not purify himself or take his medicine, and so 1 am beating him.' The mandaiin alighted from his horse, ami knelt down and did obedience to her, saying, ‘(live me, I pray you, this drug, that I may hand it down to posterity for the salvation of mankind.’ Hence it got its name. Take it, says the Chinese advertisement, for five days, and the laxly will feel light ; take it for ten days, and your spirits will become brisk ; for twenty day's, and the voice will be strong and clear, and the hands and feet supple ; for one year, ami white hairs become black again, ami you move as though Hying. Take it constantly, and all troubles w ill vanish, and you will pass a long life without giowing old. All this for three ami sixpence the bottle.