Ok 



Journal of Pharmacology, 



Devoted to the Advances Made in Materia Medica in its Branches. 



Pharmacy, Pharmacognosy, Chemistry, Botany, Pharmaco- 



Dynamics, 1 herapeutics and Toxicology. 



Published by the Alumni Association of the Collepe of Pharmacy of the City of New York. 



Vox,. V. 



NEW YORK, MAY, li 



No. 5. 



MEDICINE OF THE CHINESE. 



By Fkanklin Staples, M. D. 



Whatever has pertained to the civilization of the Chinese has been 

 characterized by a fixedness not known in the history of any other people. 

 Dr. Baas aptly likens the Mongolians, in this their dominant character, to 

 what exists in the organic world, which, once crystalized, remains forever 

 unchanged, with no inherent tendency either to grow or decay; while the 

 civilization of other peoples, those of Indo-Germanic origin, he compares 

 to what is in the organic kingdom, whose existence involves the certainty 

 of changes incident to life. "With the latter, civilizations have sprung up, 

 developed, bloomed and decayed, and finally perished, sometimes with the 

 peoples themselves.'' The possibility of such permanence in the: habits 

 and in what pertains to the lives of the Chinese is accounted for, in part at 

 least, by the fact that it has ever been the policy of the government of this 

 vast empire to keep itself intellectually and physically free from inter- 

 mixing with foreign races. 



The materia] constituting the ancient history of different peoples has 

 been transmitted to modern times in different ways. Evidences of the 

 character and cultivation of the ancient Egyptians appear on remaining 

 monuments in ancient ruins and tombs; the learning of the Greeks has 

 come to us in the Creek literature which has been preserved. Neither 

 monuments nor historical literature are found in China to furnish history 

 much older than the present era. Unreliable and exaggerated traditions 

 are found, which attribute certain scientific works to persons living in the 

 remote past. As illustrative of these, it was given that the Emperor Chin- 

 nung (B. C. 2699), who was the reputed author of a work on medicinal 



(From Northwestern Lancet.) 



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