Medical Art in the Chinese Quarter [pp. 496-506]

496 MEDICAL ART IN THE CHINESE QUARTER. [JUNE,
in the soft light of the emigrating moon
and the stars; over the wide, wide pastures of Arizona, beneath sunrises ushered with the " pomp of Persian mornings," and rainy sunsets which turn all
earth and air into blood; down the mystic Gila, through those fairy-like, green
colonnades of pitahayas, which also
stand on the red porphyry mountains,
and in their arms catch the tired moon;
across the Colorado Desert, that old
and hungry negative of all things; up
among the gray, round cones of the
Sierra Nevada; down among the tumbled Alpine hills, green forever, but
softly mystic with an earthquake halo
about their brows; down across the
arid plains, and rolling knolls, and the
green lines of orange groves along the
streams; till at last the hoarse blast of
the whistle challenges the ancient reign
of Ocean.
MEDICAL ART IN THE CHINESE QUARTER.
UDGING from the number of their
apothecary stores, one would sup pose that the Chinese were large
consumers of medicines. Nor are appearances in this particular deceptive.
There are in San Francisco a dozen
or more establishments where Chinese
medicines are prepared and sold, and
the business is said to be very profitable.
These establishments employ, each on
an average, about four men in cutting,
mixing and putting up prescriptions, and
in decocting and drying their thousand
and more remedies, gathered from every
imaginable source. Every town in the
country where there are Chinese has its
medicine store, and scarcely an invoice
of goods can go to the trader in the
most distant mining settlements, or to
the sutlers who follow up the camps of
the railroad laborers, but medicines will
occupy a prominent place in it.
One would infer, therefore, that there
must be an extensive field for physicians who understand the nature and
application of these supposed remed(ies; and this is found to be the case.
The Chinese, wherever they go, are followed up pretty closely by men professing to be skilled in the healing art.
There is, however, a great diversity in
the abilities and qualifications of these
physicians. Some, without any medical education or training whatever, but
because nothing better offers, buy, beg,
or borrow a set of medical books, put
out a sign, and begin writing prescriptions for all who apply to them; while
others have grown gray in the practice
of their favorite art, having done scarce
anything all their days but to study the
diagnosis of diseases, the nature of
medicinal herbs, minerals, and animal
substances, together with the theories
respecting the effects of every variety
of extraneous influences on diseases,
as well as the influence of the imps and
other spirits. To become acquainted
with all that has been written in the
Chinese language on the subject of
diseases, the nature.of remedies, and
the manner of preparing and applying
them, is a task which many years of
study would be required to accomplish.
These medical books also contain many
notices of the manner in which certain
medicines were first discovered, also marvelous accounts of the cures that have
been performed by them. They profess
to describe the internal structure of the
body, and to define the influence of the
dual powers upon the various organs;
also to speak of many other subtle and
mysterious influences which the skillful