524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



bladder of tigers or bears, and even of men, especially notorious bandits 

 executed for their daring crimes, and drink the bile, with the belief that it will 

 impart courage. 



Theories are numerous to account for the nourishment of the body 

 and the functions of the viscera, and upon their harmonious connection 

 with each other and the five metals, colors, tastes and planets is founded 

 the well-being of the system, the whole intimately connected with the 

 all-pervading functions of the yin and yang — those universal solvents 

 in Chinese philosophy. 



2. Materia Medica, Botany and Zoology. — The advance made by 

 the Chinese themselves in the study of natural history is shown by the 

 contents of the two chief works — " Pun Tsao," or " Herbal," compiled 

 by Li Shi Chin after thirty years spent in collecting information, pub- 

 lished about 1590 (40 octavo volumes — 52 chapters), and "Chili Wall 

 Ming-shih Tu-kao," or " Eesearches into the Names and Virtues of 

 Plants," 60 volumes with plates, some of them good drawings, published 

 in 1848. 



The author of the first of these treatises was the first and last purely 

 native critical writer on natural science. He consulted some eight 

 hundred previous authors and selected fifteen hundred and eighteen 

 prescriptions, to which he added three hundred and seventy-four new 

 ones, arranging the whole in what for his day was a scientific manner. 



After two introductory chapters on the practise of medicine and 

 an index to the recipes contained in the work, which fills the first 

 seven volumes, there are two chapters (filling three and a half volumes), 

 giving a list of medicines for the cure of all diseases, and this with an 

 essay on the pulse in the final volume constitutes the therapeutical sec- 

 tion of the treatise. The remaining forty-eight chapters cover, after 

 the fashion of the author, the whole range of natural objects — treating 

 of inorganic substances under " water " and " fire " and minerals, as 

 earth, metals, gems and stones, throwing into a polyglot chapter what 

 could not be included in the preceding sections; the vegetable kingdom 

 is presented under the five divisions — herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits 

 and trees; these again into families containing members which have 

 no real relationship to each other, the lowest term sometimes being a 

 genus, a species, or even a variety, as Linnaeus used these terms. 



In the classification of the minerals, etc., the influence of the 

 language itself is shown, for, as pointed out by Williams, the division 

 is exactly that of the seven radicals which stand for fire, water, earth, 

 metals, gems, stones and salts, under which the names of inorganic 

 substances were classified in the imperial dictionary. The same thing 

 is true for other parts of the treatise. 



In classifying herbs, the habitat is taken as the criterion, an " herb " 

 denoting whatever is not eaten or used in the arts or which does not 

 attain to the magnitude of a tree. 



