SIX WEEKS IN A TOWER. 93 



shook his head. His first judgment on the case was 

 that it was to-to tit, or " too much heat ; " for the 

 Chinese almost invariably divide diseases under that 

 head and under to-to hiany, or "too great cold." 

 Blood-letting is not used in fevers, for, say they, "a 

 fever is like a pot boiling : the way to cure the pa- 

 tient is to lesson the fire, and not to lose the liquid." 

 Apparently the doctor we called in was a species of 

 homoeopathist, for the strong medicines which he pre- 

 scribed decidedly increased the illness, and, after one 

 or two trials, were consigned to a loophole. Several 

 of the remedies fashionable among the Chinese are of 

 this kind, and some of them would astonish people in 

 Europe. Father Bipa mentions that, after a fall from 

 his horse, and when it was feared that his brain was 

 injured, the treatment pursued was to draw a band 

 tightly round his head, the ends being held by two 

 men, while a third " struck the skull vigorously with 

 a piece of wood." This, the Father naively adds, 

 " shook my head violently, and gave me dreadful pain. 

 He said it was to set the brain, which he supposed 

 had been displaced; and it is true that, after the 

 second operation, my head felt more free." In order 

 to put right the Father's ribs, which were supposed to 

 have been dislocated, two men held a cloth over his 

 nose until he was almost suffocated. In these days, 

 in this country, when nearly every form of " pathy " 

 has been exhausted, might not some bold Esculapius 

 make a new hit by adopting this Chinese system 1 



