from a pxpor read recently before the The following are interesting extracts Svochow terary Society by Mrs. Aona Waller Fearn, M.D.
One of the peculiar features or vue practice of medicine in China, which struck me as being altogether novel when I first reached this country of surprises, was the fact that a physician was never expected to call on his patient a second time unless invited to do so. Bly first case was that of the wife of a former Governor of Kuangtung province, and the first announcement made was that they, had tried fifty other physicians who had all failed, and us che was el kuatse" they had decided to gi the foreign doctor a chance to try her akill, I suggested the advisability of allowing her first to recover from the effects of the Chinese treatment, and then giving the foreign medicine atrial. The patient herself, attracted by the novelty of employing a foreign woman physician, decided in my favour and a few minute doses of foreign medicine, versus many gallons of Chinese mixture wrought a cure, and won for the Hospital an entree i the homes of the highest official fa in the city. In this way the responsibil lity falls heavily upon no-one though oocssionally it does occur that a native physician will find it advisable to seck a change of residence for a time.
For example' one hot night in July I received an urgent call to seo the wife of a prominent official. After a slight examina-Mien, T asked, "Why did. you send for me?" Because she cannot sneeze," ras the unexpected answer, for the woman Then ina puzzled-lost way they repeated the dread word, ""Deadehe ts' deeds oho says—and the Ohinese physician told us only this morning that it was only a peculiar condition the result of her disease and that she would be more being-kanni in the morning." And so, following the unfailing laws of cause and effect, it was—the disease, cholera—the result, death. Tt was then midnight and all that day they had only lad shadowy forebodings as to the true state of the case. This physician found it advisable to leave the city for an indefinite time.
One of the methods of punishment inflicted upon an unfoctanate physician, who has mistaken his prognosis, so that instead of the promised recovery the patient has entered the region of the great-unknown, is, to say the least, unnerving wave lights before the little ome's eves. These methods are in direct contradistinetion to our Western measures of absolute quiet, sedatives, and subdued lights.
In one dis work we find most encouraging changes. The return patients are more numerous and the "medicines given out from the dispensary are really taken, although there are still many who vary in the habit of drug-taking, from those of the cast-iron stomach order, who take 8 week's supply of strychnine of arsenic at one dose, to those who receive a radical cure from the presence of a full befile on an adjacent table. Not infrequently do we find that, notwithstanding the most careful verbal explanations, as well as ibis, the liniment has boon, "eaten," tinted instructions on different coloured
and the mixture applied. Traly there is a special provitlence which protects the babes and the innocents! Te is, among the dispensary patients that we find distracted mothers on a breathless hunt for a spider or any other small living insect, to carry away with her to her home and thus restore one of the three souls or six ghosts, which the wight of the foreiga doctor hastfrightened out of the screaming child. But then weare as often credit-to the one on whom it is practised.
A ed with undeserved praise as blame; for messenger again seeks, the, doctor, and tance, they say our former Gon with honeyed words and sufiiing counte ance says, ' Your prognosis was correct on application of the " great come and seo for yourself how well she And all unconscious of the horror Corure him Ne grice and la led upstairs ty the patient's room, the curtain drawn, and confronts hi re. ly 9 fow Bay for the purpowo of obtaining a radio-reeks ago this happened, and when the graph, though it was a fortunate ovine lence which caused the little one to show a terrified physician would have fled, be-marked hold! the steps were drawn and he was a beginning just at the time o improvement in her general health, her exposure sioner; freed only when he had written for the family of the deceased a cheque following fow popular remedies for Tls. 300. They say this hi us quently and I feel quite sure that it is because of such cases as these that the which follows a chill, a cure is effected if custom has been established of making a parent or near relative will slip quiet the worst possible prognosis, whereby up to an unlocked box id sud-nothing is lost if the patient dies, an donly lock it; thus the e it is looked everything gained if she lives—faco saved within, and the patient and reputation earned. It is only one Danse of hydrophobia: To prevent among many of the tricks of the trade, the hunger at the beginning of hiberoation, outcome of the fear which the practitioners all snakes fill their mouths with a pellet have of their own people. of mud, which is ejected when the winter About nine years ago one of our most is over; if by chance this dainty morsel promising young graduates gave up a fine Practice to invest his all in " steam-launch sal's. be swallowed by ® dog, hydrophobic reops certainty for an uncertainty, he reventure. When asked why he was giving Hemorrhage: The blood of a white duck killed at the patient's bedside and plied that he could not stand the nervous drank hot will cure any hmmorrhag strain, which came with the practice of To extract a tooth: Cook well the medicine. If he left a patient becter at bones of @ rat, pulverise, and apply to night it was not uncommon to find her tooth. If it is foreordained that the worse, if alive, on the morrow; or if he left haw with har honda nnmhownd, he wae tooth is to come out this will bring it; quite sure to find her well started on the of it will Decoine more firmly fixed than road to recovery on his next visit; and the ever. This was the favourite prescription burden of the ibility of the case of the great celebrity, Mo Bet-z0, who was quite sufficient without the added fear was at one time physician to the Emperor, of what the family might do. and who lately died at hie home in Among the many uplifts of encanrage-Soochow. Another popular remedy is to ment which come to us these days is the remove the entrails of a fish, fill the fact that we are now almost invariably abdominal cavity with arsenical acid, lasked not only to see a case but to take hang in cool place, and wait for the charge of it from the beginning to the fins to turn white; then scrape from the end; although we still occasionally hear fins the small white excrescences, dry, the reason given for sending for us that. pulverise, mix with aromatic powder, the patient was si " and could receive no harm from our presence, our make a party end soply tooth, This treatment not being worthy of considera-the tooth. nards tion or speculation.
How to diagnose anthrax: Have your Sneezing—one's ability or disability to patient eat a raw yellow bean; if the accomplish this fet—is from an Orionta's disease is anthrax it will taste as if well standpoint, a symptom worthy the greatest cooked; if it is not anthrax, the taste consideration and respect. Sneezing re will be that of the raw yellow bean. convulsions is s matter of moment. I have hundreds of times attempted to save a Cholera: Over the umbilicus place a baby from the heroic treatment of having plash composed of musk, brimstone, red straws thrust up its nose to sneeze off a iodide of meroury, pulverized threatened convulsion. I have suggested the removal from the room of six or seven 2¢8d, amahs whose business it was to scream when the convulsion threatened, and to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.