p. 10 | HEATHEN MEDICINE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 24, 1900

HEATHEN MEDICINE.

Dr. Willard Parker used to say, "Medical missions are clinical Christianity." The first thing an embryonic Chinese medical student does is to commit to memory the three hundred places in the body where skewers may be driven through with safety. Some of these so-called safe places are through the abdomen and lungs. Suppuration is treated by dabs of tar-plaster. A favorite remedy for anemia is a jelly made from the bones of a man recently killed. A criminal execution is largely attended by practitioners, to obtain this valuable ingredient. Ophthalmia is still treated in some parts of China with a lotion of boiled monkey’s feet, pork, and alcohol. In Korea the bones of a tiger are considered a specific for cowardice. A strong tiger-bone soup will make a hero of the most arrant coward. They argue thus: The tiger is very strong; his bones are the strongest part of him; therefore a soup of his bones will be pre-eminently strengthening. Superstition is paramount. In China charms are worn to expel evil spirits; gongs are beaten and firecrackers ignited. Imagine the state of mind of one sick unto death surrounded by a crowd who are vying with one another as to how much noise they can make to frighten away the demon causing the illness. Cruelty is practised. In Arabia an ingenious expedient for relieving a patient is to burn holes with red-hot irons ‘to let the disease out.’ Dr. Hall gives an account of a visit to a child by a Korean physician, who first made some pyramids of brown powder and set them on the chest and ignited them until the skin became raw. Then he thrust a long needle through each foot and the palms of the little hands and into the thumb-joints and through the baby’s lips. Imagine, if you can, the agonizing screams of the child while this barbarous and useless treatment was being practised.—China Medical Missionary Journal.