Twelfth Annual Report of the Peklog Hospital for 18, by Jai Dudgeon, xv, For twelve years the Peking Hospital has been diffusing practical blessings and benefits amongst the native population. Tt has had difficulties to contend against, but in the main the anticipations of its projectors must have been satisfied. During the past year 18,300 patients have been prescribed for, and the institution seems growing in the favour and esteem of all classes of the community. The Report of Dr. Dudgeon which we have before us is, as usual, filled with interesting facts, and throws considerable light upon the opinions of the natives, and the more subtle and curious beliefs that underlie their superstitious practises, and colour their views on man and nature, Though -as we see the Chinese are, in many cases, ready to avail themselves of Western proficiency in the healing art, and though they are very grateful when cured, they ye the most profound faith all the time in their own prescriptions and in those traditional methods of cure which have been practised by their physicians from immemorial antiquity. Thus the European Doctor has to humour his patients in various ways, and while using intelligent modern remedier, must often apparently employ the orthodox treatment. To quote an instance from the Report "Another patient, a Baddhist priest, had both bones of his right ley broken by a cart passing over it a little above the ankle. "Be too had the ley put up splints, and his desire for some medicis to cause union of the bones was immediately attended to by one of the assistants, who, equal to the occasion, produced he felicitously termed the bone-un elixir pill." ho priest was greatly plea and expected, from the efiieagy of the pi to be able to leave in a few days. In ihis, however, he was disappointed."
One always looks in the Reports of the Foreign Hospitals in China for some remarks on the vexed question of opium smoking. The Report of the Hospital in Shanghai published in 171, mentioned the value of atropine. We read that in all cases of profound coma from opium poisoning, with perfect insensibility, firmly contracted pupils and stertorous breathing, atropine should be used at once, and the patient carefully supported afterwards by the administration of coffee, ammonia, and stimulants, Dr. Dudgeon, on the contrary, thinks that itis quite doubtful whether the deadly action of opium is prevented by atropine,"" and in this belief he is supported by the testimony of a non-medical missionary, Dir. Pierson of Uchow. Dr. Dudgeon says "when the eases in which atropine has been used are closely examined, I fear an unfavourable judgment will be arrived at. In the favourable cases, other remedies have been had recourse to, so xs to render it difficult, if not impossible, to divide out the share each remedy had in the recovery." This question, however, is one that belongs more properly to the payes ut a purely medical journal than to the columns of an ordinary newspaper.
Most of us recollect the painful and anxious excitement which prevailed in Shanghai, some years ago, on the subject of hydrophobia, The Chinese have a number of curious beliefs with regard to this dreadful disease, We have had, ina former Report, a list of some of the various remedial measures most in vogue; here we have anew one: "The patient must eat the body (the head is to be thrown away) of a Spanish fly, and the greatest quietness must at the same time be observed. The patient must on no account hear any noise, such as that of a bell, gong, drum, or such like, else the recovery is impossible. "After Ube administration of the can-thatis, several masses like blood clots may
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.