230 
THE VETERINARY ART IN CHINA. 
in manuscript relating to the subject, and he thought that he 
could have the loan of it. 
“After a few weeks,” says our author, “ a book of twenty 
pages, sparingly covered, and inscribed in the running-hand, was 
given to me, and I was assured that none of the prescriptions 
had been copied but such as had been authenticated by the ex- 
perience of the governor’s surgeon. The book was accepted with 
suitable acknowledgments, and laid up among many other re- 
cords which I keep of the Celestial Land. When I sat down to 
write this short chapter, this literary, ‘monument’ was taken 
from its hiding-place, still fresh in Chinese neatness. It begins 
by teaching us how to feed a buffalo. The next half dozen pages 
are occupied with the mention of the principal maladies incident 
to the buffalo, with a brief detail of their respective cures. The 
ailments of the sheep, the dog, the swine, the domestic fowl, and 
the duck, are specified, in connexion with their several remedies*. 
The word horse occurs but once, and that by accident. If it is 
fair, therefore, to draw an inference from the production before me, 
this great veterinary surgeon had never tried his hand upon that 
noble beast over whose welfare it was his duty to watch. Thus 
it fares with many of the Chinese. There are, however, accord- 
ing to other MSS., six domesticated animals which are allowed a 
place upon the doctor’s list, — the horse, the ox or kine, the 
sheep, the domestic fowl, the dog, and the swine. The duck is 
introduced as a friend of chanticleer. 
“ My friend’s acquaintance with books was not very extensive ; 
for, within a few days, two copies of a printed work upon the dis- 
eases of the camel, the horse, and buffalo, were brought to me by 
different hands ; and he himself sent me an old copy of the same 
work some time after, which he had probably begged from a 
brother professor, as it contains many notes in manuscript. One 
volume is occupied with the history and treatment of the disor- 
ders incident to the camel, which is a strong proof that this 
‘ child of the desert’ was once in general use among the Chinese. 
Each section is accompanied by a figure, for the purpose of ex- 
hibiting to the eye the particular attitude in which the animal 
rests itself while suffering from the malady described in that 
chapter. The poor patient cannot answer a string of questions ; 
the doctor is therefore obliged to study its behaviour, — a practice 
familiar with experienced practitioners of the west. The natives 
of the Celestial Empire, in days when the intellectual flame was 
trimmed from time to time, refined upon this idea, and, calling 
* Orpiment and linseed oil figure among the remedies for external disor- 
ders, as do also snake’s skin reduced to ashes and applied hot; and the fibres 
from the leaves of tobacco in decoction are used in the same way. 
