origin of chinese culture.—shamanism.—disease-demons.—taoism.—medicine gods.—mediums.—anatomy and physiology of the chinese.—surgery.—no hospitals in china.—chinese medicines.—filial piety.—charms and sacred signs.—medicine in thibet, tartary, and japan.
chief amongst the mongolian peoples are the chinese. prof. max müller argues that the chinese, the thibetans, the japanese, coreans, and the ural-altaic or turanian nations are in the matter of religion closely related.
chinese culture has recently been declared by professor terrien de la couperie, fran?ois lenormant, and sayce to be of accadian origin. hieratic accadian has been identified with the first five hundred chinese characters, and it is believed by professor de la couperie that the chinese entered north-western china from susiana, about the twenty-third century before christ.287
in the finno-tartarian magical mythology, we have not only the link which connects the religion of heathen finland with that of accadian chald?a, but we discover what is of more importance in tracing the origin of the magic and medicine of the old civilizations of the world from a primitive and coarse cosmogony, such as we have examined in so many savage peoples.
as it is impossible to separate the ancient medical belief of a people from its religious conceptions, if we admit prof. max müller’s theory, we must also hold that it embraces the medical notions of these peoples. and so we find that one of the striking characteristics of the mongolic religions is an extensive magic and sorcery—shamanism. practically the gods and heroes of the poetry of these peoples are sorcerers, and their worshippers value above everything their magical powers. taoism, a chinese religion of great antiquity and respect, involves an implicit faith in sorcery; and the chinese and mongolians have degenerated buddhism into shamanism.288
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confucianism is the chief religion of the chinese. it is simply a development of the worship of ancestors, which was the aboriginal religion of the country. all the chinese are ancestor-worshippers, to whatever other native religion they may belong.289
the pure confucian is a true agnostic.
although chinese civilization is without doubt extremely ancient, we are unable to study it as we study that of egypt or chald?a, on account of the absence of monuments or a literature older than a few centuries before christ, which would give us a reliable history.
the chinese attribute to huang-ti (b.c. 2637) a work on medicine, which is still extant, entitled nuy-kin, which is probably not older than the christian era. they also attribute to the emperor chin-nung (b.c. 2699) a catalogue of medicinal herbs.290
the demon theory of disease universally obtains throughout the chinese empire. all bodily and mental disorders spring either from the air or spirits. they are sent by the gods as punishments for sins committed in a previous state of existence. in a country where buddhism is largely believed, it is natural to suppose that there is little sympathy with the suffering and afflicted. one might offend the gods by getting cured, or delay the working out of the effects of the expiatory suffering. archdeacon grey found a grievously afflicted monk in a monastery in the white cloud mountains. he desired to take him to the canton medical missionary hospital; but the abbot took him aside, and begged him not to do so, as the sufferer had doubtless in a former state of existence been guilty of some heinous crime, for which the gods were then making him pay the well-merited penalty.291
nevertheless, when sick, the chinese often have recourse to some deity, who is supposed to have caused the illness. if the patient dies, they do not blame the god, but they withhold the thank-offering which is customary in case of recovery. the death is declared to be in accordance with the “reckoning of heaven.” if the patient recovers, the deity of the disease gets the credit. prayers and ceremonies are made use of to induce the “destroying” demon to banish the baneful influences under his control. sudden illness is frequently ascribed to the evil influence of one of the seventy-two malignant spirits or gods. in very urgent cases an “arrow” is obtained from an idol in the temple. this “arrow” is about two feet long, and has a single written word, “command,” upon it. if the patient recovers, it must be returned to the temple with a present; if he dies, an offering of mock-money is127 made. the “arrow” is considered as the warrant of the god for the disease-spirit to depart.292
in l’ien-chow, in the province of kwang-si, if a man hits his foot against a stone, and afterwards falls sick, it is at once recognised that there was a demon in the stone; and the man’s friends accordingly go to the place where the accident happened, and endeavour to appease the demon with offerings of rice, wine, incense, and worship. after this the patient recovers.293
sometimes it is difficult to find out what particular god has been offended. then some member of his family asks, with a stick of burning incense in his hand, that the offended deity will make known by the mouth of the patient how he has been offended. the disease is sometimes, as amongst savage nations, ascribed to the spirit of a deceased person. the god of medicine is invited to the sick man’s house in cases where malignant sores or inflamed eyes are prevalent. ten men sometimes become “security” for the sick person. after offerings and ceremonies, the names of the ten are written upon paper, and burned before the idol. when a patient is likely to die, the last resort is to employ tauist priests to pray for him, and then the following ceremony is performed:—a bamboo, eight or ten feet long, with green leaves at the end, is provided, and a coat belonging to the sick man is suspended with a mirror in the place where the head of the wearer of the coat would be. the priest repeats his incantations, to induce the sick man’s spirit to enter the coat, as it is supposed that the patient’s spirit is leaving the body or has been hovering near it. the incantations are to induce the spirit to enter the coat, so that the owner may wear both together. sometimes the family will hire a tauist priest to climb a ladder of knives, and perform ceremonies for the recovery of the sick man. this is thought to have a great effect on the disease-spirits.294
the emperor fuh-hi, who invented the eight diagrams, was the first physician whose name has come down to modern times. he is one of the sang hu?ng, or “three emperors,” and is the deity of doctors.
i kuang tāi u?ng is the god of surgery. the people say he was a foreigner, of the loochoo islands, who came to the middle kingdom and practised surgery. as he was deaf whilst in the flesh, his worshippers consider he is thus afflicted now that he is a deity, so they pray into his ear, as well as offer him incense and candles.295
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ling chui n? is the goddess of midwifery and children. if children are sick, their parents employ tauist priests in some of her temples to perform a ceremony for their cure.296
i?h uong ch? sü is the god of medicine. it is said that he was a distinguished physician who was deified after his death. he is now generally worshipped by dealers in drugs and by their assistants. on the third day of the third month, they make a feast in his honour, and burn candles and incense before his image at his temple. practising physicians do not usually take any part in these proceedings.297
the chinese have goddesses of small-pox and measles, which are extremely popular divinities. should it thunder after the pustules of small-pox have appeared, a drum is beaten, to prevent them breaking. on the fourteenth day ceremonies are performed before the goddess, to induce her to cause the pustules to dry up.298
mediums are often employed to prescribe for the sick. they behave precisely as our spiritualists do, and pretend that the divinity invoked casts himself into the medium for the time being, and dictates the medicine which the sick person requires.299
in the “texts of táoism”300 we are informed that “in the body there are seven precious organs, which serve to enrich the state, to give rest to the people, and to make the vital force of the system full to overflowing. hence we have the heart, the kidneys, the breath, the blood, the brains, the semen, and the marrow. these are the seven precious organs. they are not dispersed when the body returns (to the dust). refined by the use of the great medicine, the myriad spirits all ascend among the immortals.”
anatomy and physiology have made no progress in china, because there has never been any dissection of the body. the only books on the subject in the chinese language are jesuit translations of european works. briefly stated, chinese ideas on the subject are as follows:—in the human body there are six chief organs in which “moisture” is located—the heart, liver, two kidneys, spleen, and lungs. there are six others in which “warmth” abides—the small and large intestine, the gall bladder, the stomach, and the urinary apparatus. they reckon 365 bones in the whole body, eight in the male and six in the female skull, twelve ribs in men and fourteen in women. they term the bile the seat of courage; the spleen, the seat of reason; the liver, the granary of the soul; the stomach, the resting-place of the mind.
a familiar drug in chinese materia medica, which is sold in all the129 drug-shops, is the kou-kouo, or bean of st. ignatius. the horny vegetable is used, after bruising and macerating, in cold water, to which it communicates a strong bitter taste. “this water,” says m. huc,301 “taken inwardly, modifies the heat of the blood, and extinguishes internal inflammation. it is an excellent specific for all sorts of wounds and contusions.... the veterinary doctors also apply it with great success to the internal diseases of cattle and sheep. in the north of china we have often witnessed the salutary effects of the kou-kouo.”
this bean is the seed of strychnos ignatia, and the plant is indigenous to the philippine islands. the action and uses of ignatia are identical, says stillé, with those of nux vomica.302
the medical profession is a very crowded one in china, as it is perfectly free to any who choose to practise it. no diploma or certificate of any kind is necessary in order to practise medicine in china. the majority of the regular practitioners, if such they can be called, are men who have failed to pass their examinations as literates. there is one, and apparently only one, check on quackery. the chinese have a special place in their second hell which is reserved for ignorant physicians who will persist in doctoring sick folk. in the fourth hell are found physicians who have used bad drugs, and in the seventh hell are tortured those who have taken human bones from cemeteries to make into medicines. in the very lowest hell are physicians who have misused their art for criminal purposes. these evil persons are ceaselessly gored by sows.303
naturally, the sciences of anatomy and physiology are entirely neglected by these self-constituted native doctors. all the learning they require is the ability to copy out prescriptions from a medical book. dr. gould, a physician of long experience in china, tells us that the native physician is depicted in chinese primers as a person between the heathen priest and the fortune-teller—his profession is looked upon as a combination of superstition and legerdemain.304
the court physicians at pekin are of a much superior class, and are compelled to pass examinations before their appointment.
astrology, charms, amulets, and characts enter largely into chinese medical practice. the priests keep bundles of paper charms ready for emergencies. they are supposed to know which of the different methods of using them are most appropriate to each case. masks are used by children at certain times to ward off the deity of small-pox.130 the masks are very ugly, as the deity is believed only to afflict pretty children.305
“isaac vossius,” says southey, “commended the skill of the chinese physicians in finding out by their touch, not only that the body is diseased (which, he said, was all that our practitioners knew by it), but also from what cause or what part the sickness proceeds. to make ourselves masters of this skill, he would have us explore the nature of men’s pulses, till they became as well known and as familiar to us as a harp or lute is to the players thereon; it not being enough for them to know that there is something amiss which spoils the tune, but they must also know what string it is which causes that fault.”306
surgery has never made much progress in china; the chinese have too much respect for the dead to employ corpses for anatomical purposes, and they have the greatest unwillingness to draw blood or perform any kind of operation on the living. their ideas of the structure of the human frame are therefore purely fanciful. “the distinctive chinese surgical invention is acupuncture, or the insertion of fine needles of hardened silver or gold for an inch or more (with a twisting motion) into the seats of pain or inflammation.”307 rheumatism and gout are thus treated, and 367 points are specified where needles may be inserted without injury to great vessels or vital organs.
dentistry and ophthalmic surgery are practised by specialists.
there are no hospitals; the chinese consider it would be a neglect of the duty which they owe to their relatives to send them when sick to such institutions. chinese doctors often receive a fixed salary so long as their patient remains in good health; when he falls sick, the pay is stopped till he gets well. the doctor must ask his patient no questions, nor does the patient volunteer any information about his case. having felt the sick man’s pulse, looked at his tongue, and otherwise observed him, he is supposed to have completed his diagnosis, and must prescribe accordingly. some of the chinese prescriptions are very costly; precious stones and jewels are often powdered up with musk and made into pills, which are considered specifics for small-pox and fevers. another remedy is kiuchiu, a bitter wine made of spirit, aloes, myrrh, frankincense, and saffron, which is said to be a powerful tonic. the profession of medicine is hereditary, receiving very few recruits from outside; hence its complete stagnation.308
one of the industries of the foo-chow beggars is the rearing of131 snakes, which are used by the druggists to prepare their medicines. snake-wine is used as a febrifuge, and snake’s flesh is considered a nutritious diet for invalids. skulls, paws, horns, and skins of many animals, as bears, bats, crocodiles and tigers, are used in medicine. for fever patients physicians prescribe a decoction of scorpions, while dysentery is treated by acupuncture of the tongue. pigeon’s dung is the favourite medicine for women in pregnancy; and the water in which cockles have been boiled is prescribed for skin diseases, and for persons who are recovering from small-pox. rat’s flesh is eaten as a hair-restorer, and human milk is given to aged persons as a restorative. crab’s liver administered in decoction of pine shavings is used in a form of skin disease. in gordon cumming’s wanderings in china, from which many of the above facts are taken, it is stated that “dried red-spotted lizard, silk-worm moth, parasite of mulberry trees, asses’s glue, tops of hartshorn, black-lead, white-lead, stalactite, asbestos, tortoise-shell, stag-horns and bones, dog’s flesh and ferns are all recommended as tonics.” burnt straw, oyster shells, gold and silver leaf, and the bones and tusks of dragons are said to be astringent. these dragons’ bones are the fossil remains of extinct animals. some of the medicines of standard chinese works are selected purely on account of their loathsomeness, such as the ordure of all sorts of animals, from man down to goats, rabbits, and silk-worm, dried leeches, human blood, dried toads, shed skins of snakes, centipedes, tiger’s blood, and other horrors innumerable hold a conspicuous place in the chinese pharmacop?ia. nor, says gordon cumming, are these the worst. the physicians say that some diseases are incurable save by a broth made of human flesh cut from the arm or thigh of a living son or daughter of the patient.309
the same author tells us that a young girl who so mutilated herself to save her mother’s life was specially commended in the official gazette of peking for july 5th, 1870.
medicines prepared from the eyes and vitals of the dead are supposed to be efficacious. leprosy is believed to be curable by drinking the blood of a healthy infant. dr. macarthy and staff-surgeon rennie were present at an execution in peking, when they saw the executioner soak up the blood of the decapitated criminal with large balls of pith, which he preserved. these are dried and sold to the druggists under the name of “shue-man-tou” (blood-bread), which is prescribed for a disease called “chong-cheng,” which dr. rennie supposed to be pulmonary consumption.310
the times says (october 10th, 1892) that the character of the accusations made in the publications against europeans has created132 as much astonishment amongst the foreign residents in china as it has in the west. missionaries especially were charged—and the charges have been made frequently during the past thirty years—with bewitching women and children by means of drugs, enticing them to some secret place, and there killing them for the purpose of taking out their hearts and eyes. dr. macgowan, a gentleman who has lived for many years in china, has published a statement showing that from the point of view of chinese medicine these accusations are far from preposterous. it is one of the medical superstitions of china that various portions of the human frame and all its secretions possess therapeutic properties. he refers to a popular voluminous materia medica—the only authoritative work of the kind in the chinese language—which gives thirty-seven anthropophagous remedies of native medicine. human blood taken into the system from another is believed to strengthen it; and dr. macgowan mentions the case of an english lady, now dead, who devoted her fortune and life to the education of girls in ningpo, who was supposed by the natives to extract the blood of her pupils for this purpose. human muscles are supposed to be a good medicament in consumption, and cases are constantly recorded of children who mutilate themselves to administer their flesh to sick parents.
never, says dr. macgowan, has filial piety exhibited its zeal in this manner more than at the present time. imperial decrees published in the pekin gazette, often authorising honorary portals to be erected in honour of men, and particularly women, for these flesh offerings, afford no indication of the extent to which it is carried, for only people of wealth and influence can obtain such a recognition of the merit of filial devotion. it is very common among the comparatively lowly, but more frequent among the literati. a literary graduate now in his own service, finding the operation of snipping a piece of integument from his arm too painful, seized a hatchet and cut off a joint of one of his fingers, which he made into broth mixed with medicine and gave to his mother. it is essential in all such cases that the recipient should be kept in profound ignorance of the nature of the potion thus prepared, and in no case is the operation to be performed for an inferior, as by a husband for a wife, or a parent for a child. this belief in the medical virtues of part of the human body (of which a large number of instances which cannot be repeated here are given) has led to a demand from native practitioners which can sometimes only be supplied by murder. of this, too, examples are given from official records and other publications, some of them of quite recent date.
dr. macgowan reminds us that men capable of these atrocities have been found in other civilized lands. he says:—
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“it was in a model occidental city, not inaptly styled the ‘modern athens,’ that subjects were procured for the dissecting-room through murder, at about the same amount of money as that paid in china for sets of eyes and hearts for medicine. a remedy was found which promptly suppressed that exceptional crime in the west. in china murder of this nature can also be prevented, but not speedily. time is an indispensable factor in effecting the suppression of homicide, which is the outcome of medical superstition. that superstition is strongly intrenched in an official work, the most common book, after the classics, in the empire. so long as the concluding chapter is retained in the materia medica, it will be futile to undertake the abolition of murder for medical purposes; and so long as these abhorrent crimes prevail in china, so long will fomenters of riots against foreigners aim to make it appear that the men and women from afar are addicted to that form of murder, and thus precious lives will continue to be exposed to forfeiture.”
the most celebrated drug in chinese materia medica is ginseng, the root of a species of panax, belonging to the natural order araliac?. the most esteemed variety is found in corea; an inferior kind comes from the united states, the panax quinquefolium, and is often substituted for the real article. all the chinese ginseng is imperial property, and is sold at its weight in gold. the peculiar shape of the root, like the body of man—a peculiarity which it shares with mandrake and some other plants—led to its employment in cases where virile power fails, as in the aged and debilitated. special kinds have been sold at the enormous sum of 300 to 400 dollars the ounce. europeans have hitherto failed, says the encyclop?dia britannica, to discover any wonderful properties in the drug. it is no doubt a remarkable instance of the doctrine of signatures (q.v.). in all cases of severe disease, debility, etc., the chinese fly to this remedy, so that enormous quantities are used. the hon. h.?n. shore, r.n., says that the export from new-chang in manchuria to the chinese ports of this article for one year alone reached the value of ￡51,000. it seems to be simply a mild tonic, very much like gentian root. some of the pharmacies are on a very large scale; six hundred and fifty various kinds of leaves are commonly kept for medicinal purposes.
when a chinese physician is not able to procure the medicines he needs, he writes the names of the drugs he desires to employ on a piece of paper, and makes the patient swallow it; the effect is supposed to be quite as good as that of the remedy itself, and certainly in many cases it would be infinitely more pleasant to take! this custom of swallowing charms is seen again in the sick-room, some of the charms which134 are stuck round it being occasionally taken down, burned, and mixed with water, which the patient has to drink. gongs are beaten and fire-crackers let off to frighten away the demons which are supposed to be tormenting the sick person.
“the superstition as to the powers of the ‘evil eye,’” says denny,311 “may almost be deemed fundamental to humanity, as i have yet to read of a people amongst whom it does not find some degree of credence.” in china a pregnant woman, or a man whose wife is pregnant, is called “four-eyed”; and children are guarded against being looked at by either, as it would probably cause sickness to attack them.
one of the commonest diagrams to be met with in china is the mystic svastika, or “thor’s hammer” 卍. it is found on the wrappers of medicines, and is accepted as the accumulation of lucky signs possessing ten thousand virtues.312
the physicians of thibet, says m. huc,313 assign to the human body four hundred and forty diseases, neither more nor less. lamas who practise medicine have to learn by heart the books which treat of these diseases, their symptoms, and the method of curing them. the books are a mere hotch-potch of aphorisms and recipes. the lama doctors have less horror of blood than the chinese, and practise bleeding and cupping. they pay great attention to the examination of a patient’s water. a thoroughly competent lama physician must be able to diagnose the disease and treat the patient without seeing him. it is sufficient that he make a careful examination of the water. this he does not by chemical tests, as in western nations, but by whipping it up with a wooden knife and listening to the noise made by the bubbles. a patient’s water is mute or crackling according to his state of health. much of chinese and tartar medicine is mere superstition. “yet,” says m. huc very judiciously, “notwithstanding all this quackery, there is no doubt that they possess an infinite number of very valuable recipes, the result of long experience. it were perhaps rash to imagine that medical science has nothing to learn from the tartar, thibetian, and chinese physicians, on the pretext that they are not acquainted with the structure and mechanism of the human body. they may, nevertheless, be in possession of very important secrets, which science alone, no doubt, is capable of explaining, but which, very possibly, science itself may never discover. without being scientific, a man may very well light upon extremely scientific results.” the fact that everybody in china and tartary can make gunpowder, while probably135 none of the makers can chemically explain its composition and action is a proof of this fact.
m. huc says that every mongol knows the name and position of all the bones which compose the frame of animals. they are exceedingly skilful anatomists, and are well acquainted with the diseases of animals, and the best means of curing them. they administer medicines to beasts by means of a cow-horn used as a funnel, and even employ enemas in their diseases. the cow-horn serves for the pipe, and a bladder fixed on the wide end acts as a pump when squeezed. they make punctures and incisions in various parts of the body of animals. although their skill as anatomists and veterinary surgeons is so great, they have only the simplest and rudest tools wherewith to exercise this art.
“medicine in tartary,” says m. huc,314 “is exclusively practised by the lamas. when illness attacks any one, his friends run to the nearest monastery for a lama, whose first proceeding, upon visiting the patient, is to run his fingers over the pulse of both wrists simultaneously, as the fingers of a musician run over the strings of an instrument. the chinese physicians feel both pulses also, but in succession. after due deliberation, the lama pronounces his opinion as to the particular nature of the malady. according to the religious belief of the tartars, all illness is owing to the visitation of a tchutgour, or demon; but the expulsion of the demon is first a matter of medicine. the lama physician next proceeds, as lama apothecary, to give the specific befitting the case; the tartar pharmacop?ia rejecting all mineral chemistry, the lama remedies consist entirely of vegetables pulverised, and either infused in water or made up into pills. if the lama doctor happens not to have any medicine with him, he is by no means disconcerted; he writes the names of the remedies upon little scraps of paper, moistens the paper with his saliva, and rolls them up into pills, which the patient tosses down with the same perfect confidence as though they were genuine medicaments. to swallow the name of a remedy, or the remedy itself, say the tartars, comes to precisely the same thing.
“the medical assault of the usurping demon being applied, the lama next proceeds to spiritual artillery, in the form of prayers, adapted to the quality of the demon who has to be dislodged. if the patient is poor, the tchutgour visiting him can evidently only be an inferior tchutgour, requiring merely a brief, offhand prayer, sometimes merely an interjectional exorcism. if the patient is very poor, the lama troubles himself with neither prayer nor pill, but goes away, recommending the friends to wait with patience until the sick patient gets136 better or dies, according to the decree of hormoustha. but where the patient is rich, the possessor of large flocks, the proceedings are altogether different. first it is obvious that a devil who presumes to visit so eminent a personage must be a potent devil, one of the chiefs of the lower world; and it would not be decent for a great tchutgour to travel like a mere sprite; the family, accordingly, are directed to prepare for him a handsome suit of clothes, a pair of rich boots, a fine horse, ready saddled and bridled, otherwise the devil will never think of going, physic or exorcise him how you may. it is even possible, indeed, that one horse will not suffice; for the demon, in very rich cases, may turn out upon inquiry to be so high and mighty a prince, that he has with him a number of courtiers and attendants, all of whom have to be provided with horses.
“everything being arranged, the ceremony commences. the lama and numerous co-physicians called in from his own and other adjacent monasteries, offer up prayers in the rich man’s tents for a week or a fortnight, until they perceive that the devil is gone,—that is to say, until they have exhausted all the disposable tea and sheep. if the patient recovers, it is a clear proof that the prayers have been efficaciously recited; if he dies, it is a still greater proof of the efficaciousness of the prayers, for not only is the devil gone, but the patient has transmigrated to a state far better than that he has quitted.
“the prayers recited by the lamas for the recovery of the sick are sometimes accompanied with very dismal and alarming rites. the aunt of tokoura, chief of an encampment in the valley of dark waters, visited by m. huc, was seized one evening with an intermittent fever. ‘i would invite the attendance of the doctor lama,’ said tokoura, ‘but if he finds there is a very big tchutgour present, the expenses will ruin me.’ he waited for some days, but as his aunt grew worse and worse, he at last sent for a lama; his anticipations were confirmed. the lama pronounced that a demon of considerable rank was present, and that no time must be lost in expelling him. eight other lamas were forthwith called in, who at once set about the construction in dried herbs of a great puppet, which they entitled the demon of intermittent fever, and which, when completed, they placed on its legs by means of a stick, in the patient’s tent.
“the ceremony began at eleven o’clock at night; the lamas ranged themselves in a semicircle round the upper portion of the tent with cymbals, sea-shells, bells, tambourines, and other instruments of the noisy tartar music. the remainder of the circle was completed by the members of the family squatting on the ground close to one another, the patient kneeling, or rather crouched on her heels, opposite the137 demon of intermittent fever. the lama doctor in chief had before him a large copper basin filled with millet, and some little images made of paste. the dung-fuel threw amid much smoke a fantastic and quivering light over the strange scene. upon a given signal, the clerical orchestra executed an overture harsh enough to frighten satan himself, the lay congregation beating time with their hands to the charivari of clanging instruments and ear-splitting voices. the diabolical concert over, the grand lama opened the book of exorcisms, which he rested on his knees. as he chanted one of the forms, he took from the basin from time to time a handful of millet, which he threw east, west, north, and south, according to the rubric. the tones of his voice as he prayed were sometimes mournful and suppressed, sometimes vehemently loud and energetic. all of a sudden he would quit the regular cadence of prayer, and have an outburst of apparently indomitable rage, abusing the herb puppet with fierce invectives and furious gestures. the exorcism terminated, he gave a signal by stretching out his arms right and left, and the other lamas struck up a tremendously noisy chorus in hurried, dashing tones. all the instruments were set to work, and meantime the lay congregation, having started up with one accord, ran out of the tent one after the other, and tearing round it like mad people, beat it at their hardest with sticks, yelling all the while at the pitch of their voices in a manner to make ordinary hair stand on end. having thrice performed this demoniac round, they re-entered the tent as precipitately as they had quitted it, and resumed their seats. then, all the others covering their faces with their hands, the grand lama rose and set fire to the herb figure. as soon as the flames rose he uttered a loud cry, which was repeated with interest by the rest of the company. the laity immediately arose, seized the burning figure, carried it into the plain, away from the tents, and there, as it consumed, anathematized it with all sorts of imprecations; the lamas, meantime, squatted in the tent, tranquilly chanting their prayers in a grave, solemn tone. upon the return of the family from their valorous expedition, the praying was exchanged for joyous felicitations. by-and-by each person provided with a lighted torch, the whole party rushed simultaneously from the tent, and formed into a procession, the laymen first, then the patient, supported on either side by a member of the family, and lastly, the nine lamas, making night hideous with their music. in this style the patient was conducted to another tent, pursuant to the orders of the lama, who declared she must absent herself from her own habitation for an entire month.
“after this strange treatment the malady did not return. the probability is that the lamas, having ascertained the precise moment at138 which the fever-fit would recur, met it at the exact point of time by this tremendous counter-excitement and overcame it.
“though the majority of the lamas seek to foster the ignorant credulity of the tartars, in order to turn it to their own profit, we have met some of them who frankly avowed that duplicity and imposture played considerable part in all their ceremonies. the superior of a lamasery said to us one day, ‘when a person is ill the recitation of prayers is proper, for buddha is the master of life and death; it is he who rules the transmigration of beings. to take remedies is also fitting, for the great virtue of medicinal herbs also comes to us from buddha. that the evil one may possess a rich person is credible; but that in order to repel the evil one, the way is to give him dress, and a horse, and what not, this is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving lamas, who desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers.’”
m. huc describes a grand solemnity he witnessed in tartary, when a lama boktè cut himself open, took out his entrails, placed them before him, and then after returning them, closed the wound while the blood flowed in every direction; yet he was apparently as well as before the operation, with the exception of extreme prostration. good lamas, says m. huc, abhor such diabolical miracles; it is only those of bad character who perform them. the good priest describes several other “supernaturalisms,” as he calls them, of a similar kind, which are frequently performed by the lamas. he sets them all down to diabolical agency.315
the turanian nations have their priests of magic, says m. maury,316 who exercise great power over the people. he thinks this is partly due to the pains they take to look savage and imposing, but still more to the over-excited condition in which they are kept by the rites to which they have recourse; they take stimulants and probably drugs to cause hallucinations, convulsions, and dreams, for they are the dupes of their own delirium.
“amongst all nations,” says castrèn, “of whatever race, disease is always regarded as a possession, and as the work of a demon.”317
says m. maury:139 “the baschkirs have their shaitan-kuriazi, who expel devils, and undertake to treat the invalids regarded as possessed by means of the administration of certain remedies. this shaitan, whose name has been borrowed from the satan of the christians, since the baschkirs have come into contact with the russians, is held by the kalmuks to be the chief author of all our bodily sufferings. if they wish to expel him, they must resort not only to conjurations, but also to cunning. the aleyss places his offerings before the sick man, as if they were intended for the wicked spirit; it being supposed that the demon, attracted by their number or their value, will leave the body which he is tormenting in order to seize upon the new spoil. according to the tcheremisses, the souls of the dead come to trouble the living, and in order to prevent them from doing so, they pierce the soles of the feet, and also the heart of the deceased, thinking that, being then nailed into their tomb, the dead could not possibly leave it.... the kirghis tribes apply to their sorcerers, or baksy, to chase away demons, and then to cure the diseases they are supposed to produce. to this end they whip the invalid until the blood comes, and then spit in his face. in their eyes every disease is a personal being. this idea is so generally received amongst the tchuvaches also, that they firmly believe the least omission of duty is punished by some disease sent to them by tchemen, a demon whose name is only an altered form of shaitan. an opinion strongly resembling this is found again amongst the tchuktchis; these savages have recourse to the strangest conjurations to free from disease; their shamans are also subject to nervous states, which they bring on by an artificial excitement.”318
japanese medicine.
the chinese, as early as 218 b.c., found their way amongst the japanese doctors with medical books, dating back, it is alleged, to 2737 b.c., and the influence of chinese medicine upon japanese medicine has continued to be a controlling one up to the recent introduction of european medicines now in vogue. the old style of things is, according to dr. benjamin howard, still followed by 30,000 out of the 41,000 physicians now practising throughout the empire. of the 30,000 of the old vernacular school, one of them is still on the list of the court physicians, and maintains a high reputation. the impression throughout europe that coloured papers, exorcisms, etc., are the basis of chinese and japanese medicine is erroneous. dr. howard has seen nearly 2,000 books by these people, covering most of the departments of medicine, but amongst which materia medica occupies the leading place. in these books are the doctrines of the successive schools, strikingly like some of those which in past centuries existed amongst our own ancestors. the successive medical colleges have always had a professor of astrology, but the solid fact remains that the materia140 medica has included amongst its several hundred remedies a large number of those used by ourselves, and these are not only vegetable, but animal and mineral, in the latter class mercury being prominent. surgery became a separate branch as long since as the seventh or eighth century.
