My dear Sir, Presuming that as a friend to science and a promoter of its best interests, you might be interested in the state of the medical profession in China, and in the means adopted to instruct the Chinese in its principles, I send you a chapter of the Canton Christomathy, treating upon the subject of medicine, and an article prepared for the August number of the Chinese Repository by one of the officers of the missionary hospital, William Lockhart, Esq., M. R. C. S., exhibiting in some degree the knowledge of human anatomy possessed by the members of the medical corps in China. The subject will be further examined by us as we improve our knowledge of the language, and thus become more able to examine into the mysteries of Chinese medicine. Enough, however, is known to disprove the assertion of a late writer, that "anatomy is an art unknown to Chinese physicians." It is nevertheless true that their information on the structure of the human frame is of no use to them in their practice, which consists chiefly in feeling the pulse, by which they determine the sickness. It would occupy many volumes to enter into a detailed account of the doctrines of the pulse, as taught by the Chinese writers on medicine. It is enough for us to know that they enumerate twenty-four different kinds of pulses, with their sub-divisions. Du Halde gives an epitome of the doctrines in his justly celebrated History of China, a translation of which was published in London in 1741. These sapient disciples of Esculapius almost equal the celebrated nosologists Cullen and Good, when they divide diseases into more than one thousand different kinds. Let it be our aim to impart to them the more rational principles which govern us in our efforts to cure disease; then may we hope to spread far and wide the blessings which a Sydenham, a Larrey, or a Rush have diffused among their countrymen. I have the honour, my dear Sir, to be yours, most respectfully, Section First. CONVERSATION ON MEDICINE. 1. What is the object of medical science? It is to protect and preserve human life; hence it is necessary to know the nature of medicines, and the origin of diseases, together with the laws of treating them. 2. In what estimation is medicine held by the Chinese? Medicine, designed to protect and prolong human life, has been called the benevolent art; and therefore is esteemed second only to the literary profession. 3. What is requisite in order to enter the profession? You must seek for some celebrated practitioner, and become his pupil. In order to search into the principles of the science, and investigate the nature of remedies, select several medical authors for study, and peruse them until the principles are understood, and your knowledge is extensive; then you may read all the professional writers. 4. Are there any medical schools? There are none in all the country; but at Peking there has been established a great medical college, and persons most thoroughly acquainted with medicine, and possessing an unblemished character, are after examination selected to enter the college, to fill its offices, and to practise therein. This great medical college has one principal director, and also one of a secondary, and another of a subordinate, rank, who superintend and examine the treatment of all the nine classes of diseases, and who direct all those who are entrusted with the business of the institution. Fifteen members of the college hold the rank of imperial physicians; thirty are overseers; forty are masters of medicine; and thirty rank as bachelors of medicine. 5. Who are some of the ancient eminent physicians? The earliest were the emperors I'm and Wóng; next were K'ipák and Pákkò; and after them followed Mòhám, Ts'óngkung, Pintséuk, Wát'ò, Shunyü l', Wóng Shukwó, Ch'an Kwai, Hü Hautsung, Li Shichan; and also there were Chéung Chungking, Lau Shauchan, Lí Tungún, and Chû Tánk'ai, designated the four great and renowned physicians, who are even to this day much esteemed. 6. What are the best medical books? The medical books cannot be severally considered; for every branch having its own authors, the doing so would only perplex the student. But for matter and method none equal the "Golden Mirror of Eminent Authors," and the "Comparative Compendium of Medical Writers." 7. How are diseases to be treated? Always in treating diseases, whether they be internal or external, it is necessary in all cases to examine into the origin of the malady by inspection, by hearing, by interrogation, and by feeling the pulse. 8. Are there any hospitals for gratuitous practice? Sometimes only there have been such. 9. At the apothecary's shop, in what manner are medicines sold, and how are they compounded? Medicines, in a crude or prepared state, are purchased from all the provinces, and are either cut in pieces or preserved whole; and then they are measured out according to recipes, sometimes several kinds being compounded together; at others they are formed into ointments, pills, or powders, or steeped in spirits, and retailed in small quantities. 10. Does the penal code speak on this subject? It speaks respecting physicians: "On injuring or killing persons by an unskilful practitioner," it thus decrees: "Whenever an unskilful practitioner, in administering medicines, or using the puncturing needle, proceeds contrary to the established forms, and thereby causes the death of a patient, the magistrate shall call in other practitioners to examine the medicine or the wound, and if it appears that the injury done was unintentional, the practitioner shall then be treated according to the statute for accidental homicides, and shall not be allowed any longer to practice medicine. But if designedly he departs from the established forms, and deceives in his attempts to cure the malady, in order to obtain property, then according to its amount he shall be treated as a thief; and if death shall ensue from his malpractice, then, for having thus used medicine with intent to kill, he shall be beheaded." Notes and Explanations. Medical science among the Chinese is in a very different state from that to which it has been advanced by modern practitioners in the west. It is where it was centuries ago: many diseases are regarded as incurable for which modern improvement has devised sure and speedy remedies. However, a more thorough investigation of the healing art, as understood by this people, may yet be of essential advantage to the science. It would probably be found, were the subject sufficiently examined, that the Chinese, as a nation, enjoy as good a degree of health, and on an average attain to as great an age, as any other people. 1. Preventive medicine, or hygiene, is a part of the benevolent art to which the Chinese pay great, but evidently not too much, attention; they say, truly, "Prevention is better than cure." The words pò ts'ün, as here used, are quoted from an imperial work, and indicate that the primary object of the science is to preserve and protect men from illness, rather than to heal their diseases, or to cure their maladies. 3. The phrase í lí, or institutes of medicine, may be understood as comprising the general physiological, hygienic, and therapeutical relations of medicine, or the general and fundamental principles of the science. 5. I'm tai-Yen te, or the emperor Yen-is otherwise called Shannung, the divine husbandman, and the father of medicine. The emperor Wong was his successor, and with him K'ipák was cotemporary. Pákkò lived about the same time. Mòhám, Ts'óngkung, with his pupil Píntséuk, lived prior to our era. Wat'ò is the physician said to have laid bare and scraped a bone of the hero Kwán, and so saved him from the fatal effects of a poisoned arrow: one is now styled a god of medicine, and the other of war. Popular tradition says that Wat'ò was decapitated at the instigation of Tsò Tsò, for having proposed to trepan that famous general with a view to cure him of an affection of the brain. Shunyü l' lived near the same time. Wóng Shukwó is known by his work on the pulse, epitomised in Du Halde. Ch'an Kwai is said to have removed diseased viscera. Of Li Shichan, who flourished in the reign of Mánlik, of the Ming dynasty, it is enough to say he is the compiler and principal author of the Pún ts'ò. There are also many other physicians, ancient and modern, who are highly celebrated. 6. Besides these, there are many others in high repute and extensively used. In the sixth volume of the Pún ts'ò, there is a list of 276 medical works quoted by Li Shichan; and likewise a list of 440 miscellaneous works, historical, biographical, &c., from which he made extracts for his materia medica. 10. This law, here quoted, forms the 297th section of the penal code, and seems to be the only reference made therein to the medical profession. For engaging in the practice of medicine no license is required; but the physician must beware lest his medicines fail to have the desired effect. Description of a Chinese Anatomical Plate, illustrative of the Human Body, with explanations of the terms. The plate, the explanation of which is the object of the present paper, is copied from the Kashira Gaki zoü ho, or First Book in Instructing Youth, an encyclopediac Japanese work, containing descriptions, not only of anatomy, but of dress, houses, arts, mythology, &c. Figures of a similar kind are also found in various Chinese medical works. One is contained in the Luy King, a book consisting of twenty volumes, a collection of writings on several branches of medical science, anatomy, physiology, practice of surgery and medicine, and hygiene. A similar figure forms one of a series of four large anatomical plates (about three feet long) issued by the imperial medical college. It is possible that this Japanese drawing may have been copied from a Chinese original, but it is much superior in mechanical execution to the Chinese plates. The Chinese are by no means ignorant of some of the general principles of anatomy and physiology, though many of their ideas are so much obscured by what is frivolous and absurd, as to be almost entirely undeserving of attention. This is strikingly exemplified in their endless disquisitions on the yin and yang, which foreigners have considered as the female and male principles of nature. Almost every square inch of the external surface of the body has its peculiar name; and in all their series of anatomical figures, there are some individual plates appropriated to this extreme marking out of the surface, until the whole body is covered with names. In medical practice, they apply their external remedies to these various spots; and Chinese may frequently be seen with small patches of some adhesive plaster on various parts of the body, on the principle that when there is pain in any particular part of the body, a plaster must be applied on one of these arbitrary spots; these are the places where moxas and cauteries are to be applied, and they are called heue. All the prominent parts of the surface, as the shoulder, elbow, trochanter, and knee, are said to be under the influence of the yang, or male principle; while the depressions of the surface, as the armpit, bend of the arm, groin, and ham, are under the influence of the yin, or female principle! They have some knowledge of the bones, and of their general shape and position, though they are not at all particular as to the way in which they are joined together, and make sad havoc among what anatomists call the processes of the bones. As to the muscles, they appear to know nothing about them or their use in the system, since they make no other remark upon the muscular substance than giving it the general term of juh, flesh. They call the tendons kin, and suppose that the strength of the bodily frame depends upon them; it appears to be applied also indiscriminately to all the fibrous cords. In regard to the blood-vessels, no clear distinction is made between the arteries and veins; there are certainly two names, king and lo; as also the names king muh and lo muh, given to these vessels. It would appear that king is merely the name of the straight vessels, and lo of the lateral branches; for in the Nan King it is said, "king chih hing chay, the king are the vessels that follow a straight course; and lo pang hing chay, the lo are those that have a lateral direction." Whether there be any other names given to the blood-vessels is uncertain; but the consideration of this subject, as also of the nerves, must be deferred for the present. In regard to the shape and position of the viscera they have some general ideas, but these ideas are far from being correct. It appears as if some person had seen an imperfect dissection of the interior of the body, and then had sketched from memory a representation of the organs, filling up parts that were obscure out of his own imagination, and portraying what, according to his opinion, the parts ought to be, rather than what they in reality are. The following is the description of the plate, beginning at the top; the explanation of the characters is drawn from Chinese sources: The title of the plate is Tsang Foo, the organs of the human body. These organs are divided into two classes. The tsang, or parenchymatous viscera, of which there are five, viz. the lungs, heart, liver, spleen, and kidney; foo, or membranous viscera, of which there are six, as the large and small intestines, the stomach, bladder, gall-bladder, and the san tseaou, the three passages. Naou, the brain. Suy hae che yin, reservoir of the marrow, and the abode of the yin principle in its highest perfection. Tung te, it has communication with the sacral extremity of the vertebral column. How tung ke, the larynx, or passage for the breath. Yen tung shih, the pharynx, or passage for the food. Shen chung, the sternal region, or centre of the thorax; it is the space situated between the mammæ, is the seat of the breath, and has the office of envoy or imperial servant; joy and delight emanate from it. It can distinguish between the yin and yang, and, being the source of change, cannot be injured without danger. Fe, the lungs; they are placed in the thorax, resemble the flower of the water-lily, and are suspended from the spine; they are divided into two portions, and subdivided into six (ye) lobes, four being on the left side, and two on the right. There are holes in them, out of which the sound comes; phlegm is produced in them; they are of a white colour, and correspond to metal. They have the office of transmission, and rule the various parts of the body. Sin, the heart, is situated in the thorax, and holds the office of prince, or lord and ruler in the body; the spiritual intelligences (the thoughts) emanate from it. Sin paou, called also paou lo, the pericardium; it comes from and envelops the heart, and extends to the kidneys. Pe he, the bond of connection of the spleen. Shin he, the bond of the connection of the kidneys. Wei he, the œsophagus. Kih mo, the diaphragm, is situated below the heart and lungs, and has its several connections with the spine, the ribs, and bowels; it prevents the fetid exhalations from ascending. Kan, the liver, is placed on the right side; it corresponds with wood, and is of a purple colour; it has seven lobes, and has the office of generalissimo; the hwan, or soul, resides in it; schemes and plans emanate from it. Tan, the gall-bladder, is placed below the liver, and projects upwards into it; it has the office of judge; determination and decision proceed from it; when people are angry it ascends or expands. Pe, the spleen, is situated near the stomach, corresponds to earth; it assists in digestion, and is of a yellow colour. Wei, the stomach. Fun mun, the cardiac extremity. Yew mun, the pylorus. The stomach is connected with the spleen, from which the food passes through the stomach into the large intestines; the spleen and stomach have the office of storing up; the five tastes emanate from them. Che man, the omentum. Tse, the navel. Tan teën, the "vermilion field," or pubic region. Seaou chang, the small intestines, are connected with the heart; the urine passes through them into the bladder, and is then expelled. They have the office of receiving abundance; digestion of the food is carried on in them. Lan mun, the caput coli, is between the small and large intestines. Here a separation of the contents of the intestines takes place; the watery secretions flow hence into the bladder, and the grosser parts or fæces pass down into the large intestines. Ta chang, the large intestines, are connected with the lungs, are situated in the loins, and have sixteen convolutions; they are of a white colour, and have the office of forwarding. Transformation is produced in them. Chih chang, the rectum. Kuh toau, or kang mun, the anus. Kaou, or te, the sacral extremity. Shin, the kidneys, are situated in the loins; correspond to water, are of a dark colour, and resemble an egg or bean in shape; they have the office of producing power and skill; ingenuity proceeds from them, and the subtle or |