MATERIA MEDICA OF THE ANCIENT CHINESE. 7 
originally means “tender blade of herbs and grass, sprouts,” 
is more generally used in the sense of herb (stem and leaves 
together), ff su? is properly a spike of flowers, an ear of 
corn, but the ancient authors use this term also to designate 
a panicle, raceme, etc. 
Great confusion and yagueness prevail in these ancient 
descriptions of plants with respect to colours. Jy ts‘ing 
originally means “blue.” The dictionaries say it is the 
colour of indigo. But when applied to plants it always 
means “ green,” the character # /%, now the common term 
for green, being but rarely used in the Pen ts‘ao kang mu. 
The character #4 pi [Witurams’ Dict., 691] means green or 
blue jade. It is occasionally used in the Pen ts‘ao to 
indieate the colour of flowers, and I think blue is meant. 
4 tsz‘ is originally a purple colour, but frequently it must 
be translated by violet or brown. 3% ch% and $E hung are 
used for red in the Pen ts‘ao, the first being the older term. 
The term 7 4, wu se, the five primary colours, occurring 
in the classics [see Shu king, p. 80], is defined by the com- 
mentators by #} blue, #¥ yellow, FF red, Ey white, FH black. 
When meeting in the Pen ts‘ao with a term like #0 E476 
we are, if the plant described be unknown to us, left in doubt 
whether we have to translate red and [or] white flowers or 
reddish white flowers. 
Chinese pharmacy and therapeutics with complicated pre- 
scriptions, which fill up the greater part of the text of the 
Pen ts‘ao kang mu, do not lie within the compass of our 
investigations, and the medical uses of the drugs are only 
oceasionally noticed. In our opinion European science can 
learn nothing in this department of Chinese knowledge. We 
do not mean to deny that there are in China — 
drugs possessed of powérful medical virtues, but the Chinese 
Faculty in employing them in their practice of medicine 
