502 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [December 28,1872. 
F. Porter Smith, O. Debeaux, and especially Daniel 
Hanbury. But an inherent difficulty in the subject 
has existed in the fact that the medicaments used in 
China are nearly always in a state of mixture, al¬ 
tered by successive boilings in different liquids, and 
reduced, if not to powder, at least to such small frag¬ 
ments as to be almost unrecognizable. The investi¬ 
gations of one of the authors upon the spot have, 
therefore, been of great service. 
The subtances of the materia medica are in this 
work divided into three classes, mineral, animal and 
vegetable. In looking over the list one is struck that 
it presents as a whole, and even in many of its 
details, many of the features of the European materia 
medica. The present work might almost be taken 
as one of the old treatises in which a nascent science, 
not yet confident in itself, has not disdained to adopt 
The errors of charlatanry and popular superstition. 
The belief in the specific action of drugs seems to 
liave strongly influenced medical practice in China, 
as it did but lately that of Europe. Besides, the 
Chinese believe, as Europeans did in the middle 
ages, that the appearance of a substance will give a 
•clue to the services it may render to man, i.e., the 
doctrine of signatures. Thus the luciole is re¬ 
commended for affections of the visual organs; a 
madder (Bubia mungista), having a red root, is given 
for amenorrhcea; Polygonum tinctorium, which yields 
indigo, is reputed efficacious for eruptive fevers; the 
reniform fruit of the Kadsura chinensis is said to 
possess aphrodisiac properties; while ginseng, with 
its bifurcated root resembling the legs of a man, is 
looked upon as restoring virile powers to the' sick 
and aged. Considerations of the same kind are, 
doubtless, the foundation of the reputation of the 
Cordiceps sinensis as exciting the genital organs ; 
that of the Bidens parvijiora as infallible in making 
the nails grow; of the Vitex incisa in making the 
beard grow ; and of the Apocynum juventus as a re¬ 
juvenescent. These are strange illusions, but they 
merit indulgence from those whose ancestors adminis¬ 
tered the lungwort to cure phthisis, the gromwell 
to cure the gravel, and the carrot for the jaundice. 
In other points the Chinese show more scientific 
tendencies. For instance, the astringent substances 
of the materia medica, whether vegetable (oak galls 
and Chinese galls, etc.) or mineral (alum, acetate 
and sulphate of iron, salts of lead, silver etc.), are 
used like the bitters as tonics and febrifuges ( Salix 
babylonica, Populus tremula, Dicliroci febrifuga), 
to arrest perspiration, for atonic diarrhoea and sper¬ 
matorrhoea. The aromatics, essential oils, and bal¬ 
sams, obtained from the Labiatse, Umbelliferae, Com¬ 
posure, Myristicacese and Styracaceae, garlic, santal, 
Daphniduim cubeba, etc., are used as diffusible stimu¬ 
lants, febrifuges, antispasmodics, and remedies for 
■catarrhs ; wormwood and saffron are considered em- 
menagogues, and the abortive power of the ergots of 
rice and maize is well known. Mercurial preparations 
have been employed from time immemorial in 
Chinese medicine for syphilis; arsenic for strumous 
and herpetic affections and certain intermittent fevers; 
iron as a blood restorer. Borax is prescibed for aph- 
■thse; nitrate of soda as a diuretic; carbonate of lime 
ns an absorbent, and an oleo-calcareous liniment for 
burns. Ancient writers recommended the ashes of 
■sea-weed in cases of goitre. Other substances used 
by them as by Europeans are sulphur, acetate of 
-copper, castor oil, gamboge, aloes, rhubarb, aconite, 
veratrum, colcliicum, camphor, musk and opium. 
They have sternutatories, sialagogues and anthel¬ 
mintics analogous to ours. Further, they pretend to 
possess a number of substances capable of prevent¬ 
ing drunkenness ( Betonica officinalis, Hovenia dulcis, 
Chrysanthemum album, nutmeg and borax), and 
others exercising an influence upon the lactic secre¬ 
tion, either by suspending it (sprouted barley) or in¬ 
creasing it ( Silene ? Alisma plantago). 
One thing is very remarkable, that surgical an¬ 
aesthesia, general and local, has long been used in 
China. The great surgeon, Houa-To, who advo¬ 
cated hydropathy, used a species of Atropa de¬ 
scribed hi the ‘ Pun-Tsaou,’ which produced an insensi¬ 
bility sufficient to permit him to perform important 
operations upon the abdomen. The Datura alba has 
similar properties. Besides these, the Azalea pro- 
cumbens, which they often associate with andromeda 
and henbane as a narcotic, produces, when mixed 
with powdered aconite root, a local anaesthesia which 
is utilized for small operations. 
Chinese medical men have recognized that there 
is an antagonism between certain substances; that 
they are incompatible in the same formula, and 
that they may be used reciprocally as antidotes. 
Thus, it is recommended to avoid the association 
of ta-ky (a species of Carduus) with Glycyrrhiza, 
Chamcedaphne and Helminthocorton ; wasp stings, 
and the bites of scorpions, and even of venomous ser¬ 
pents, are recommended to be treated by the Bidens 
parvijiora; Nelumbo is to be administered to those 
poisoned by crabs, and the toxic effects of fungi averted 
by alum or the root of Cichorium, and those of aconite 
by Libanotis. An efficacious antidote to arsenic is 
said to exist in the Phaseolus angulatus, which would 
lead to the supposition that this species, belonging 
to a harmless genus, possesses exceptionally a pliar- 
maco-dynamic activity comparable to that of the 
Calabar bean, and superior to that of another Le¬ 
guminous plant, the Cytisus Laburnum, the toxic pro¬ 
perties of which are perhaps analogous to those of 
the exotic Phaseolus. 
Some of the observations of the Chinese show con¬ 
siderable sagacity, such as the favourable effects of 
sprouted barley in digestive disorders, the dispersive 
action exercised by nitre and sal ammoniac upon 
opacities of the cornea; the immunity from goitre 
enjoyed by persons drinking water preserved in 
leaden vessels, a circumstance which appears to point 
to the preparations of lead as preventitive of that 
disease. Moreover, some of the substances vaunted 
as remedies in the East probably deserve testing by 
experiment and clinical observation. Such are 
the Anemarrhena asphodeloides employed for the 
same purposes as squills; the Pardantlius chinensis, 
to which is attributed various and remarkable pro¬ 
perties; the Pupalia geniculata, the acrid root of 
which is a sialogogue, and employed in cases of rheu¬ 
matism, etc.; the Passerina Chamcedaphne, a tinc¬ 
ture of which is employed as a cordial, tonic and 
febrifuge ; the Behmannia chinensis, useful in general 
debility; the Dimorephanthus edulis, frequently 
prescribed for loss of blood, heart disease, etc. ; the 
Gynocardia odorata, the seeds of which are extolled for 
skin disease and syphilis ; and among the febrifuges, 
the Tournefortia argusina, the Tricliosanthes clioica , 
and especially the Dichroa febrifuga, the reputation 
of which is great in Cochin China, and which doubt¬ 
less has more claims than the others to be looked 
upon as a substitute for cinchona. 
