THE PEOGRESS OF SCIENCE IN CHINA. 
379 
are to be found in almost every bookseller’s shop throughout the 
Empire dwell entirely on the virtues of simples. The properties 
belonging to herbs, and to the leaves and fruits of plants, have 
been carefully studied by jnedical practitioners in all ages, but 
beyond this point these learned men have never got. They 
know nothing of anatomy, and of the composition of the sim- 
plest compounds they are entirely ignorant. Hence the status 
of medical men is a very low one. They are looked upon only 
as quacks and impostors, and occupy much the same position 
that certain herbalists hold among ourselves. The doors of the 
profession are thrown open to them without any qualifying 
examination to bar the way. Any one may set up as a doctor 
who chooses to do so, and so long as he is tolerably successful with 
his patients he is allowed to pursue his course unmolested ; it 
is only when a patient dies under his care that the officials 
trouble themselves about him. This state of the law acts in 
two ways : for while it succeeds in deterring utterly incapable 
men from entering the profession, it makes practitioners ex- 
tremely unwilling to undertake dangerous cases. 
Of physiology the Chinese know next to nothing, and their 
ideas as to the functions of the various organs are as vague as 
they are absurd. Post-mortem examinations are unknown among 
them, and hence they derive what they profess to know solely 
from the traditions of the past, aided by their own imaginations. 
According to the highest authorities the body is a microcosm, 
and is composed of the five elements — fire, water, metal, wood, 
and earth. When these act together in harmony, the subject 
is in perfect health, but when the balance is lost disease and 
sickness supervene. The great object, therefore, of the phy- 
sician is to discover which of these, having gained the pre- 
eminence, requires to be repressed ; and this is done by carefully 
feeling and comparing the various pulses of the body — for, 
according to the theory of these wise men of the East, each 
organ has a separate pulse, which communicates with an ascer- 
tained part of the surface of the body, and as each organ is 
intimately connected with one of the five elements, it is easy 
to discover, by an examination of all the pulses, which one is at 
fault. A receipt book is then referred to, and from it is chosen 
a medicine either ‘‘ to strengthen the breath, to put down the 
phlegm, to equalise and warm the blood, to repress the humours, 
to purge the liver, to remove noxious matters, to improve the 
appetite, to stimulate the gate of life, or to restore harmony,” 
as the case may be. 
Of the functions of the brain they are a good deal in the 
dark, although from a well-known experiment they have 
derived the conclusion that it is to some extent the seat of the 
intellect. The unfortunate man who served to convince them 
