594  Chinese  Drug  Stores  in  America.  {Am'£lcl'm7&Tm' 
collection  may  be  found  in  the  stores  we  have  described.  It  is  popu- 
larly known  to  us  through  the  accounts  of  travelers,  as  grotesque  and 
childish,  composed  of  "  dragons  bones  "  and  scorpions,  snake  skins 
and  melon  seeds,  and  substances  selected  more  on  account  of  their 
scarcity  and  curious  origin  than  for  any  medicinal  virtues  they  may 
possess.  The  results  of  such  observations  as  have  been  made  by 
competent  foreign  scholars  are  contained  in  transactions  of  learned 
societies  and  books  generally  inaccessible  to  American  students,  but 
they  go  far  to  show  that  many  of  their  drugs  are  not  without  great 
value,  a  large  number  of  them,  in  fact,  nearly  identical  with  those  of 
our  own  pharmacopoeia,  and  that  many  important  discoveries  have 
resulted  from  the  centuries  of  experiment  upon  which  their  practice 
of  medicine  is  founded. 
Nearly  all  of  the  medicines  in  general  use  here,  with  a  few  import- 
ant exceptions,  are  of  vegetable  origin  and  consist  of  nuts,  berries, 
roots,  barks  and  herbs.  The  subjoined  list,  furnished  by  a  Chinese 
physician  in  Philadelphia,  contains  the  names  of  the  ten  drugs  he  con- 
siders valuable,  if  not  indispensable,  and  gives  some  idea  of  the  sub- 
stances actually  employed  in  their  practice : 
Ching  fong  tong.    The  root  of  a  plant. 
^\^%  Ho  Shau  U.  Root  of  Aconitum  Japonicum.1  From  Szechuen 
province. 
k  %  If  Tai  tong  hwai.  Root  of  Aralia  edulis.2  From  Szechuen 
province. 
jM»fjt&*  Hung  kwo  hi.  Fruit  of  wild  Berberis  Lycium.3  From 
Szechuen  province. 
)'l  Ch'un  td  chung.  The  outer  bark  of  a  tree.  From  Szechuen 
province. 
&§U  Pah  Jc%.    A  kind  of  lung  wort.4 
ti)  |£  Ch'itn  hung.  "  Nodular  masses  consisting  apparently  of  the 
rootstock  of  some  umbelliferous  plant  allied  to  angelica."5  From 
Szechuen  province. 
1  Daniel  Hanbury,  Science  Papers,  London,  1876,  p.  258. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  260. 
3  Catalogue  of  the  Chinese  Customs  Collection  at  the  International  Exhibition,  Phila- 
delphia, 1876.    Shanghai,  1876,  No.  3886. 
4  S.  Wells  Williams.  A  Tonic  Dictionary  of  the  Cltinese  Language.  Canton, 
1856,  p.  153. 
5  Hanbury,  p.  260. 
