Slale of Medicine in China. 73 



that hvdrogen gas is never iiiilanied at hot iron. Another ■mc;ui 

 resorted to for ventilation is an air-pump on a large scale, 

 wrought by a steam eiigine. it is made of three-inch plank, 

 with a piston five feet scjuare: the stroke is eigiit feet long ; and 

 the suction pipe and valves about one-third of the area of tlic 

 piston. At twenty strokes per minute it will draw 8000 cubic 

 feet or 778 hogsh.eads of ah- in that time ; but allowing a waste 

 of one-fourth it will draw 5S1 hogsheads per minute. 



Mr. Buddie's paper is accompanied with ten engravings illus- 

 trating the apparatus, and the methods employed to direct the 

 coiuse of the current of air in the workings, which may be com- 

 pared to alleys crossing each other at right angles. By a ju- 

 dicious arrangement some of these are closed at particular in- 

 tersections, while others are kept open. ^Ve cannot doubt that 

 this communication will prove of great ser\'ice to mine viewers. 

 It is written with great perspicuity, and by means of the en- 

 gravings is rendered very intelligible. 



We cannot close this notice wItiK3r.t an expression of regret 

 that there sliould be any want of friends to enable the Society to 

 prosecute with desirable eflicacy the great object of their asso- 

 ciation. We confess that we are surprised at the fact, when we 

 consider how m.any ricli individuals there are who are so deeply 

 interested in the result of tlie Society's labours — not in Sunder- 

 land only but in other counties. Let us hope tliat ample mean? 

 will soon be provided, and that the publicity which the Society 

 gives to its labours will be a mean of turning the attention of 

 men of science to a subject of so much importance. 



STATE OF MEDICINE IN CHINA. 



M. Page, a physician of Orleans in France, has published a 

 work on this subject. The following short account of thf 

 Chinese medical practice will probably amuse some of our 

 leaders : 



" The Chinese employ emetics and purgatives, but veiy rarely : 

 clysters arc almost never used, because they regard them as tori 

 European, but they make a free use of cordials. The importa- 

 tion of opium is prohibited under pain of death. 



" Tlie Chinese in the treatment of the itch and eruptive dis- 

 eases employ camphor and cinnabar also, with sulphur dissolvee 

 in woman's milk. They make use of borax in inilammations oi 

 the throat ; it is reduced into powder, and blown upon the dis- 

 eased part. They borrowed tlie use of the bark from the Jesuit 

 missionaries. 



"They were acquainted with inoculation long before us. 

 They practise it in general by introducing into one of the nostrils 

 cotton imbibed with variolous matter : the cotton is allowed to 



remain 



