TIBET. 
411 
/ 
quicksilver had been acted on, by the other ingredients, deprived of 
its metallic form, and rendered a safe and efficacious remedy. 
A knowledge of chemistry has taught us a more certain method of 
rendering this valuable medicine, active and efficacious: yet we find 
this preparation answering every good purpose, and, by their guarded 
manner of exhibiting it, perfectly safe. This powder is the basis of 
their pill, and often used in external application. The whole, when 
intimately mixed, formed a reddish powder, and was made into the 
form of pills, by the addition of a plum or date. Two or three pills, 
taken twice a day, generally bring on, about the fourth or fifth day, a 
spitting, which is encouraged, by continuing the use of the pills for a 
day or two longer. As the salivation advances, they put a stick 
across the patient’s mouth in the form of a gag, and make it fast 
behind. This, they say, is done to promote the spitting, and prevent 
the loss of their teeth. They keep up the salivation for ten or twelve 
days, during which time the patient is nourished with congee, and 
other liquids. Part of this powder is often used externally, by dif¬ 
fusing it in warm water, and washing sores and buboes. They dis¬ 
perse buboes frequently, by poultices of turnip tops, in which they 
always put vermilion, and sometimes musk. Nitre, as a cooler, is 
very much used internally by them, in this disease, and they strictly 
enjoin warmth and confinement, during the slightest mercurial course. 
Buboes, advanced to suppuration, are opened by a lancet, with a 
large incision, which they do not allow to close, before the hardness 
and tumour are gone. In short, I found very little room for improv¬ 
ing their practice in this disease. I introduced the method of killing 
3 G 
