By the steamer Hassan, which arrived on the 14th inst., from Foochow, we received report of the Foochow Medical Missionary Hospital and the second report of the Opium Asylum in connection with the A.B. 0. F, M. Mission, under the care of Dr. D. W. Segre Both these institutions ate doing much useful work. The hospital was established ton years again small way inside the city, but in 1878 the building now occupied for the purpose was erected cost of $1,800, $500 of which were contributed by a gentleman long resident at Foochow, who has on several occasions proved himself a public benefactor. The Aggregato attendance of individual patients during the ten years has been 51,838, including 7,838 for the past year, and representing neatly every class of Chinese life, as well as neatly every province in the Empire, The absence of public bath-houses in Foochow is put forward aa the probable cause of the prevalence of skin discases, the cases of which outnumber all others, and no doubt will do so until the Chinese learn that " clean lin: next to godliness." Dyspepsia in various forms was also found exceedingly common, 2,395 cases having been treated, and the use of opium is one of the causes assigned for its prevalence. Regret is expressed in the report that the statistics of the number of opium poisoning cases treated. are so incomplete as to prevent their publication, but of a large number of cases treated not a few of the fatienta, it la represented, were saved. speaking of applications made for medicine to cure ulcers produced by impeded circulation result from foot binding, the statement is made that Chinese girls endure the pain and consent to have their bones compressed and deformed for the same reason that foreign ladies resort to tight lacing, and suffer as results, curved spines, distorted thorax, compressed Jungs, &c., because it is fashionable, and the opinion is advocated that if people must try and improve the model given them by the Almighty, from a physiological and common sense view, foot-binding is less injurious then tight lacing. We hazard the opinion, however, that there is no similarity between the two, while, if there is, tight Incing is less barbarous and less Roure, whereas foot-binding does not. The inful, and adds gracefulness to the large number of 241 cases of leprosy is reported, the majority of which came from Hing-hwa, and the country bordering on the sea between Foochow and Amoy. Dr. Osgood says ho has never seen a well-marked case of leprosy cured, and but fow improved as the result of treatment. Dr. Gauld of Swatow, who has had a leper hospital under his care, reports some cases cured and many benefited. Leprosy, says the report, '"'has existed in China over two thousand years, and is much more common in the south than in the north. The Government have established lazarettoes in nearly all the large cities in South China. There are two near Foochow, one outside the east, and one near the west ate, each having from two to four hundred inmates. 'I'he adults are said to have a grant of four hundred cash or about thirty-five cents per month given them from the Emperor; but it is doubtful if they receive half of that amount after passing through so many hands. The inmates go about the streets begging, and if they chance to discover anyone with the disease they report him to their chief, who compels him to enter the lazaretto or extorts a large sum of money asa bribe." Forty-three case of elephantiasis have been treated, particulars of some of which are given, and the report concludes with some interesting details as to the Chinese Materia Medica, which is said to include toads, frogs, turtles, crabs, snakes, wasps, tigers' bones and tendons fora tonic, while
scorpions, centipedes, elephant's skin, human hair and teeth, all find a place on the shelves of a Chinese drug-store, as well as some valuable remedies derived from the vegetable kingdom, such as Aconite, Camphor, Myrrh, Glycerrhiza, Gentian and Rhubarb.' connected with the hospital, it appears From the report on the opium asylum
that 1,500 cases have been treated since the work was commenced, and 350 cases during the past year. The increased use of opium in England and America is alluded to, making facts relating to the taxi logical effects of opium, or the cure of its victims, of interest to the medical profession in these countries. It is asserted that among boatmen, chair-coolies, and yamen attendants, one-half of them use the drug, while smokers make a very small minority in agricultural districts. After a residence of more than ten years in China, and after treating about 50,000 Chinese patients, of whom 1,768 were treated for opium-smoking, Dr. Osgood wishes to record his conviction that the use of opium is "an unparalleled curse, and that its effect in i a diminished vitality and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.