fpeaking, who can apply relief to mifery. But the Chinefe,
who feetn to differ in their opinions from all the reft o f mankind,
whether civilized or favage, pay little refped to the
therapeutick art. T h e y have eftablifhed no public fchools for
the fludy o f medicine, nor does the purfuit'of it lead to honours;
rank, or fortune. Such as take up the profeflion are generally
o f an inferior clafs ; and the eunuchs about the palace are con-
fidered among their beft phyficians. According to their own
account, the books on medicine efcaped the fire, by which they
pretend the works o f learning were confirmed, in the reign o f
Sbee-wbang-tee, two hundred years before the Chriftian era ;
and yet the beft o f their medical books o f the prefent day are
little better than mere herbals, Specifying the names and enumerating
the qualities o f certain plants. The knowledge o f
thefe plants and o f their fuppofed virtues goes a great way towards
conftituting a phyfician. Thofe moft commonly employed are
gin-fing, rhubarb, and China-root. A few preparations are
alfo found in their pharmacopoeia from the animal and the mineral
kingdoms. In the former they employ fnakes, beetles,
centipedes, and the aurelias o f the filk worm and other infe&s ;
the meloe and the bee are ufed for blifters. In the latter, falt-
petre, fulphur, native cinnabar, and a few other articles are
occafionally prefcribed. Opium is taken as a medicine, but
more generally as a cordial to exhilarate the fpirits. Though the
importation o f this drug is ftriûly prohibited, yet, as I have
before obferved, vaft quantities are annually fmuggled into the
country from Bengal and from Europe, through the connivance
o f the cuftom-houfe officers.
The phyfiology o f the human body, or the do&rine which
explains the conftitution o f man, is neither underftood, nor
confidered as neceflary to be known; and their ikill in pathology,
or in the caufes and effedts o f diieafes, is extremely limited,
very often abfurd, and generally erroneous. The feat
o f moft difeafes are, in fa£t, fuppofed to be difcoverable by
feeling the pulfe, agreeably to a fyftem built upon principles
the moft wild and extravagant. Having no knowledge what-
foever o f the circulation o f the blood, notwithftanding the Je-
fijits have made no fcruple in afferting it was well known to
them long before Europeans had any idea o f it, they imagine,
that every particular part o f the human body has a particular
pulfe affigned to it, and that thefe have all a corrcfponding and
fympathetic pulfe in the arm ; thus, they fuppofe one pulfe to
be fituated in the heart, another in the lungs, a third in the
kidneys, and fo forth ; and the ikill o f the doftor confifts in discovering
the prevailing pulfe in the body, by its fympathetic pul-
fations in the arm ; and the mummery made ufe o f on fuch occa-
fions is highly ludicrous.
B y eating too freely o f unripe fruit at Cbu-fan I had a violent
attack o f cholera morbus, and on application being made to
the governor for a little opium and rhubarb, he immediately
dilpatched to me one o f his phyficians. With a countenance
as grave and a folemnity as fettled, as ever was exhibited in a
confultation over a doubtful cafe in London or Edinburgh, he
fixed his eyes upon the eeiling, while he held my hand, beginning
at the wrift, and proceeding towards the bending o f
y Y the