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POPULAK SCIENCE REVIEW. 
of this fact was a member of the Han-lin College, whose great 
learning and wonderful memory had earned for him the soubri- 
quet of “the walking library.” It chanced, however, that 
while ridins: in Mongolia he was thrown from his horse to the 
ground with such violence, that the blow fractured his skull. 
A native physician who was called in, alarmed at the extent of 
the injury, attempted the strange experiment of substituting 
the brains of a cow for those of his patient. “ But,” adds the 
narrator, “ the accident occasioned the utter prostration of his 
eminent powers of mind, and he became from that time forward 
a wholly different man from what he had been before.” An- 
other belief, not based upon experience, is that the brain, by 
means of the spinal cord, is intimately connected with the 
kidneys. The functions of some of the organs are thus des- 
cribed in a well-known work, entitled, “ The Mirror of Medi- 
cine : ”— 
“ The spleen rubs against the stomach, and grinds the food ; 
it also keeps up the proper degree of heat in the five tsang. 
It moves the muscles and lips, and thus regulates the opening 
of the mouth ; moreover, it directs our secret ideas, so that 
they become known to us. 
“ The liver regulates the tendons, and ornaments the nails 
of the hands and feet. 
“ The heart regulates the blood-vessels, beautifies the com- 
plexion, and by its means we are enabled to open the ears and 
move the tongue. 
“ The kidneys govern the bones, beautify the hair of the head, 
and open the orifices of the two yin. 
“ The diaphragm being spread out like a membrane beneath 
the heart, and being intimately joined all round to the ribs and 
spine, thus covers over the thick vapour, so that the foul air 
cannot arise.” 
The gall-bladder is believed to be the seat of courage ; and, 
like the New Zealanders, Chinamen imagine that by devouring 
the gall of wild beasts and fearless men they gain courage 
and daring — a theory which is not unfrequently submitted to 
the test of practice on the death of celebrated bandits and 
rebels, when would-be graduates in bravery become eager com- 
petitors for the secret source of the deceased’s former greatness. 
But of all matters relating to physiology, that of which they pro- 
fess to know most, the circulation of the blood, is that of which 
they are pre-eminently ignorant. They appear to make little 
or no distinction between arteries and veins, and they hold the 
wildest ideas as to the course pursued by the blood through the 
body, and the purposes it serves. Fortunately Chinamen have 
a profound distrust of the pretended knowledge of the native 
doctors. They are far too practical a people to remain blind to 
