STRANGE MEDICINES. 753 



materia medica of China and Japan. When in a remote district of 

 Japan, she became so unwell as to deem it necessary to consult a 

 native doctor, of whom she says : 



He has great faith in ginseng and in rhinoceros-horn, and in the powdered 

 liver of some animal, which, from the description, I understood to be a tiger all 

 specifics of the Chinese school of medicines. Dr. Nosoki showed me a small box 

 of "unicorn's" horn, which he said was worth more than its weight in gold. 



She adds : 



Afterward, in China, I heard much more of the miraculous virtues of these 

 drugs, and in Salangor, in the Malay Peninsula, I saw a most amusing scene after 

 the death of a tiger. A number of Chinese flew upon the body, cut out the 

 liver, eyes, and spleen, and carefully drained every drop of the blood, fighting 

 for the possession of things so precious, while those who were not so fortunate 

 as to secure any of these cut out the cartilage from the joints. The center of a 

 tiger's eyeball is supposed to possess nearly miraculous virtues ; the blood, dried at 

 a temperature of 110, is the strongest of all tonics, and gives strength and cour- 

 age, and the powdered liver and spleen are good for many diseases, . . . and 

 were sold at high prices to Chinese doctors. A little later, in Perak, I saw 

 rhinoceros-horns sold at a high price for the Chinese drug-market, and was told 

 that a single horn with a particular mark on it was worth fifty dollars for sale 

 to the Chinese doctors. 



One of the said rhinoceros-horns was, as we have seen, among the 

 most valued treasures of the old druggist of Osaka. This horn and 

 that of the unicorn (which seems generally to mean the narwhal*) 

 have ever been held in high repute throughout the East as an anti- 

 dote to poison, and cups carved from these horns were used as a safe- 

 guard because they possessed the property of neutralizing poison, or 

 at least of revealing its presence. 



And indeed the same virtue was attributed to it by the learned 

 leeches of Europe. At the close of the sixteenth century the doctors 

 of medicine in Augsburg met in solemn conclave to examiae n speci- 

 men of unicorn's horn, which they found to be true monoceros, and 

 not a forgery ; the proof thereof being that they administered some 

 of it to a dog which had been poisoned with arsenic, and which re- 

 covered after swallowing the antidote. They further administered 

 nux-vomica to two dogs, and to one they gave twelve grains of uni- 

 corn-horn, which effectually counteracted the poison ; but the other 

 poor dog got none, so he died. Similar statements concerning this 

 antidote, and also concerning the value of elks' and deer's horns pow- 

 dered as a cure for epilepsy, appear in various old English medical 

 works of the highest authority. 



Very remarkable, also, is the efficacy supposed to attach to ante- 

 diluvian ivory, more especially the tusks of the mammoths, which 

 have been so well preserved in Siberian ice that their very flesh is 



* Monodon monoceros. 

 vol. xxxi. 48 



