36 A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



self-sacrificing German doctor, working among the Chinese 

 in Chungking, was informed of the case immediately after it 

 took place, and succeeded in saving the self-mutilated woman's 

 life. Dr. Asmy has the piece of liver preserved in spirit and 

 kept as a memento in his hospital. Among the Chinese soldiers 

 of the old school it was firmly believed that to eat the heart 

 of a brave enemy was a sure way of obtaining the courage 

 he possessed. 



These nauseating and nonsensical ideas, however, are not 

 all taken from the Chinese Herbal, and much as we may feel 

 disposed to smile at the advice contained in this work, it is 

 well to remember that Western literature on medicine of the 

 same period contains very much the same sort of instruction. 

 In Europe as late as the end of the sixteenth century plants 

 were looked upon from a purely utilitarian point of view, 

 not only by the masses, but also by very many professed 

 scholars. Just as men lived in the firm belief that human 

 destinies depended upon the stars, so they clung to the notion 

 that everything upon the earth was created for the sake of 

 mankind ; and, in particular, that in every plant there were 

 forces lying dormant which, if liberated, would conduce either 

 to the welfare or injury of man. People imagined they 

 discerned magic in many plants, and even believed that they 

 were able to trace in the resemblance of certain leaves, flowers, 

 and fruits to parts of the human body, an indication emanating 

 from supernatural powers, of the manner in which the organ 

 in question was intended to affect the human constitution. 

 The similarity in shape between a particular leaf and 

 the liver did duty for a sign that the leaf was capable of 

 successful application in cases of hepatic disease, and the 

 fact of a blossom being heart-shaped must mean that it would 

 cure cardiac complaints. Thus arose the so-called Doctrine 

 of Signatures, which, brought to its highest development by 

 the Swiss alchemist, Bombastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), 

 played a great part in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 

 and still survives at the present day in the mania for nostrums. 



In ancient Greece there was a special guild, the " Rhizo- 

 tomoi," whose members collected and prepared such roots 

 and herbs as were considered to be curative, and either sold 



