22 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



Plans of Chinese houses were shewn on*he screen. Built round an open 

 square or quadrangle, they had no windows on the outer walls and no interior 

 fireplaces. In the cold winter season the people added more clothes. The 

 bad ventilation of the houses and the lack of personal cleanliness were 

 fruitful causes of disease among the people. 



Dr. Somerville shewed an interesting series of slides, illustrating medical 

 and surgical work among people on the margin between the temperate and 

 tropical zones. Schizestemum disease had become endemic and was proving 

 a terrible scourge, and in a country like China very little could be done to 

 prevent it, and most forms of treatment were unsatisfactory. 



The native medicine men were, unfortunately, possessed of one ruling 

 principle, which consisted in sticking needles into the part which hurt, with 

 the result that very often serious consequences resulted, as when a pin which 

 had been previously in an abscess was pushed through the abdominal wall 

 The people were, however, beginning to realize the superiority of western 

 medicine, and a number of the medical missions had organized medical schools, 

 which were, however, quite unable to cope with the numbers of students seeking 

 admission. 



At Hankow they had just sent out their first batch of students who had 

 completed a five years' curriculum, and some of these men were quite up to the 

 standard of the practitioners sent out by home colleges. 



