The Chinese believe in the tiger as a Ta Sheng or Great Spirit, and endow it with many supernatural attributes. Every part of the tiger's body has some special medicinal value, for which reason the medicine shops are always willing to pay a good price for a dead tiger brought to them with its skin on. The blood, bones and whiskers are particularly efficacious, giving strength, vit; and courage to those who partake of them. This is the reason why certain well known patent medicine which is named after the tiger has attained such fame wherever Chinese are to be found. The powdered ashes of the tiger's whiskers and claws are believed to cure the evil effects of bites or stings from the five poisonous creatures—the Toad, the Snake, the Spider, the Scorpion and the Centipede.
The black markings on the forehead of many tigers take the form of the Chinese character Πwang, meaning king, and for this reason the tiger is considered a royal animal and the King of Beasts by the Chine:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.