444 CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



may be assumed that barley or rye (included by Dr. Sclilegel 

 under the name of Lai) has been longer known in Sliensi, the 

 original home of the Chinese, than wlieat, which "came" to 

 them from elsewhere. It is asserted in the Pentsao that if the 

 Xanthiiim stniwariujn be cut up, dried, and mixed with the 

 wheat it will not suffer from weevils. Wheat is regarded as 

 nourishing, but heating in its nature. It is said to be diuretic, 

 demulcent, and antihemorrhagic. Its use is also said to pro- 

 mote fertility in women. It is recommended to be used in 

 gravel, leprous skin diseases, and in wounds of the abdomen. 

 The grains of wheat which have not filled out, and will there- 

 fore float on water, are called ^ ^ (Fou-mai). They are 

 roasted and considered useful in colliquative sweating, espe- 

 cially in tuberculosis in women. 



Wheaten Bran.— ^ ^ (Mai-fu), ^ ^ ^ (Mai-fu-tzu). 

 Bran is of very good quality in China, the flour not having 

 been entirely removed by the rough mode of grinding the 

 meal. Nutritive, demulcent, vulnerary, and discutient prop- 

 erties are referred to this useful domestic remedy, which is 

 made into poultices with vinegar, or into a tea for the suppres- 

 sion of severe sweats, bloody urine, or any flux. Barley bran 

 is directed to be substituted for wheaten bran in spring and 

 summer. A pillow stuffed with fresh bran is credited with 

 much the same soothing or cooling effects in smallpox and 

 other serious diseases of infancy as the old fashioned hop 

 pillow. Bran is not much used in feeding cattle, but it is 

 sometimes given to pigs. It is an article of veterinary medicine. 

 Wheaten Flour. — % (Mien), ^ |i^ (Hui-mien), ^ % 

 (Pai-mien). This is described in the Pentsao as being slightly 

 deleterious. If hung up in an airy place for several years, it 

 is said to lose this injurious quality and to be suitable for 

 medicinal purposes. Formerly, wheat was ground by rude 

 handstones of the most primitive character, as in the rural 

 districts of China is to some extent still the case. In larger 

 towns the millers employ the yellow cow as a motive power to 

 grind over and over again the wheat, which yields a coarse 

 flour. The '^^M.'^ (San-tao-mien), or "three-way-flour", is 

 considered the finest quality which the Chinese can make with 

 their rude mills. At present, several flouring mills after the 



