iStSberPi^m'}  Pharmacy  and  Chemistry.  407 
The  Chinese  materia  medica  is  like  that  of  the  times  of  Lemery; 
the  vegetable  drugs  are  the  most  abundant ;  of  course,  there  are  also 
very  many  animal  drugs  of  all  kinds,  while  the  inorganic  chemicals 
and  the  fossil  shells,  animals  and  the  like,  are  of  least  importance. 
There  must  be  over  a  thousand  drugs  exhibited  here.  Many  are  in 
our  own  materia  medica,  such  as  rhubarb,  valerian,  veratrum  nigrum, 
liquorice,  several  varieties  of  galls,  safflower,  melon  seeds,  blistering 
flies,  calomel,  alum,  copperas,  sugar,  honey,  wax,  etc.  We  give  a 
number  of  each  kind  of  drugs  and  the  uses  to  which  they  are  put. 
Drugs  from  plants  are  many,  and  the  most  important  is  ginseng. 
By  Tong  Shan  we  mean  ginseng,  the  kind  that  grows  in  the  north- 
ern and  highly  favored  Chee-Lee  province,  and  not  the  cheap 
American  product  known  as  Yeung  Sum  by  the  Chinese.  The 
genuine  ginseng  is  much  larger  and  plumper  than  that  grown  in 
Kentucky;  and  no  Chinaman  that  has  the  price  would  take  the 
American  product  if  he  could  get  the  Chee-Lee  province  brand. 
Tong  Shan  brings  more  than  $100  a  pound  in  China  wholesale,  and 
as  it  "allays  excitement,  increases  secretions  and  the  flow  of  saliva," 
it  is  certainly  worth  it.  The  American  ginseng  is  also  a  "  siala- 
gogue,  relieves  thirst  and  is  a  cooling  medicine,"  but  it  is  worth 
only  a  little  more  than  $5.00  a  pound  in  Canton. 
Tai  Wong  is  rhubarb ;  it  is  used  for  jaundice,  dropsy  and  dysen- 
tery. 
Fu  Pak  or  amber  is  specially  indicated  in  cases  of  fright  of  chil- 
dren, and  is  used  in  nearly  all  remedies  designed  for  child  sickness. 
Mut  Yeuk  is  myrrh,  it  dissipates  effused  blood  and  cures  pain. 
Pung  Lung  Fa  is  the  betel-nut  flower;  this  is  an  expectorant  and 
intestinal  remedy. 
The  so-called  lotus  nuts  are  round  brown-coated  kernels  with 
white  meats,  and  nearly  ^  mcn  m  diameter. 
Beautiful  thin  white  sheets  of  paper  cut  in  squares  about  3  inches 
across,  as  obtained  from  Aralia  papyrifera,  are  shown. 
What  is  the  most  striking  in  this  exhibit  are  the  many  animal 
drugs;  you  feel  as  though  you  step  into  the  past  of  our  pharmacy; 
that  you  read  from  the  pages  of  the  old  Pharmacopoeia  Augustana, 
with  its  many  queer  drugs  and  the  interminable  Theriacse 
Andromachi,  its  Classes  Mithridatii  Damocratis,  and  its  gems,  fos- 
sils, snakes,  etc.,  used  at  that  time,  only  two  centuries  ago.  The 
Chinese  are  fond  of  boiling  things  up  with  water,  and  they  show 
many  animal  glues. 
