PRIMITIVE MEDICINE 



5 



of a previous existence, while the evil eye here, as everywhere, is 

 considered a fertile source of harm. Under these circumstances it 

 is not surprising that the principal featuie of the treatment of 

 disease is by magic and invocation of special gods — e.g., of that 

 of smallpox. And the best preventive measure is the charm or 

 amulet, which may be supposed to work in one of the following 

 ways: either to give the person confidence, or to act as a double, 

 so that the demon, seeing the amulet, may mistake it for the part 

 of the body which he intended to attack, and thus waste his spleen 

 on an inanimate object; or as similars. 



Associated with these primitive ideas there are signs that attempts 

 to advance the knowledge of medicine have been made from time 

 to time. For example, there is a catalogue of herbs said to date 

 as far back as about 3000 B.C. (variously stated 3216-2699 B.C.), 

 and attributed to the Emperor Chin-nong, and a work on medicine 

 called ' Nuy-kin,' or ' Nuei-King,' is said to have been written by 

 Huang-ti in 2637 B.C., while the god of medicine, Joh Uong Chu Sii, 

 is believed to have been a celebrated physician. With regard to 

 surgery, there is the god I-Kuang-Tai-U6ng, who is said to have 

 been a distinguished surgeon, and to have come from the Loochoo 

 Islands. The important works on Ancient Chinese medicine are : — 

 E-tsung-king-kass or Imperial Book; Chag-Sang, ' On Long Life '; 

 Pim-tsaon, * On Botany * ; and Ching-che-chum-ching, ' On Medical 

 Practice,' in forty volumes dealing with nosology, pharmacology, 

 pathology, surgery, and diseases of women and children. A Chinese 

 herbal was produced under the Mings during the period a.d. 1370- 

 1650, but the materia medica of the Chinese is a mixture of useful 

 drugs and gruesome matters. Among the latter may be mentioned 

 the broth made from flesh taken from living people, and the use of 

 eyes and vital parts taken from corpses. These last appear to play 

 an important part in the false accusations often made against 

 foreigners who, the Chinese believe or believed, enticed people into 

 secret places in order to kill them for the sake of these valuable 

 medicines. Dissection has been much neglected by the Chinese, 

 with the result that their knowledge of the human body is extremely 

 erroneous. 



A serious attempt was made by some Jesuits during the reign 

 of Kang-hy, who died in 1722, to improve the condition of medicine, 

 but unfortunately it was not successful, and these daring men were 

 banished during the next reign. Too high praise cannot be given 

 to the medical missionaries of various countries, who, in the face 

 of much danger, have introduced modern medicine and surgery into 

 China, nor to the medical men, merchants, and authorities who 

 founded the Hong-Kong Medical School, now the Hong-Kong 

 University, which should bring forth a changed condition of medicine 

 in China in the near future. 



Japan. — Chinese medicine was introduced into Japan about 218 

 B.C., and remained paramount until the introduction of modern 

 medicine and surgery, which quickly attained a high degree of 



