these they are in the daily habit of lighting their pipes. Hence the
great burning lens made by Mr. Parker of Fleet-Street, and carried out
among the presents for the Emperor, was an object that excited no
admiration in the minds of the Chinese. The difficulty of making a lens
of such magnitude perfect, or free from flaw, and its extraordinary
powers could not be understood, and consequently not appreciated by
them: and although in the short space of four seconds it completely
melted down one of their base copper coins, when the sun was more than
forty degrees beyond the meridian, it made no impression of surprize on
their uninformed minds. The only enquiry they made about it was, whether
the substance was crystal; but being informed it was glass, they turned
away with a sort of disdain, as if they would say, Is a lump of glass a
proper present to offer to our great _Whang-tee_? The prime minister,
_Ho-tchung-tang_, in order to convince us how very familiar articles of
such a nature were to him, lighted his pipe very composedly at the
focus, but had a narrow escape from singeing his sattin sleeve, which
would certainly have happened had I not given him a sudden push. He
seemed, however, to be insensible of his danger, and walked off without
the least concern.
Indeed, in selecting the many valuable presents relating to science,
their knowledge and learning had been greatly overrated. They had little
esteem for what they could not comprehend, and specimens of art served
only to excite their jealousy, and to wound their pride. Whenever a
future embassy shall be sent to Pekin, I should recommend articles of
gold, silver, and steel, children's toys and trinkets, and perhaps a few
specimens of Derbyshire spar, with the finest broad-cloth and
kerseymeres, in preference to all others; for in their present state,
they are totally incapable of appreciating any thing great or excellent
in the arts and sciences.
To alleviate the afflictions of mankind, and to assuage the pains which
the human frame is liable to suffer, must have been among the earliest
studies of civilized society; and accordingly, in the history of ancient
kingdoms, we find the practitioners of the healing art regarded even to
adoration. Chiron, the preceptor of Achilles, and the master of
Æsculapius, was transferred to the heavens, where he still shines under
the name of Sagittarius. Among these nations, indeed, which we call
savage, there is usually shewn a more than ordinary respect for such of
their countrymen as are most skilled in removing obstructions, allaying
tumours, healing bruises, and, generally speaking, who can apply relief
to misery. But the Chinese, who seem to differ in their opinions from
all the rest of mankind, whether civilized or savage, pay little respect
to the therapeutick art. They have established no public schools for the
study of medicine, nor does the pursuit of it lead to honours, rank, or
fortune. Such as take up the profession are generally of an inferior
class; and the eunuchs about the palace are considered among their best
physicians. According to their own account, the books on medicine
escaped the fire, by which they pretend the works of learning were
consumed, in the reign of _Shee-whang-tee_, two hundred years before the
Christian era; and yet the best of their medical books of the present
day are little better than mere herbals, specifying the names and
enumerating the qualities of certain plants. The knowledge of these
plants and of their supposed virtues goes a great way towards
constituting a physician. Those most commonly employed are Gin-sing,
rhubarb, and China-root. A few preparations are also found in their
pharmacopoeia from the animal and the mineral kingdoms. In the former
they employ snakes, beetles, centipedes, and the aureliæ of the silk
worm and other insects; the meloe and the bee are used for blisters. In
the latter, saltpetre, sulphur, native cinnabar, and a few other
articles are occasionally prescribed. Opium is taken as a medicine, but
more generally as a cordial to exhilarate the spirits. Though the
importation of this drug is strictly prohibited, yet, as I have before
observed, vast quantities are annually smuggled into the country from
Bengal and from Europe, through the connivance of the custom-house
officers.
The physiology of the human body, or the doctrine which explains the
constitution of man, is neither understood, nor considered as necessary
to be known; and their skill in pathology, or in the causes and effects
of diseases, is extremely limited, very often absurd, and generally
erroneous. The seat of most diseases are, in fact, supposed to be
discoverable by feeling the pulse, agreeably to a system built upon
principles the most wild and extravagant. Having no knowledge whatsoever
of the circulation of the blood, notwithstanding the Jesuits have made
no scruple in asserting it was well known to them long before Europeans
had any idea of it, they imagine, that every particular part of the
human body has a particular pulse assigned to it, and that these have
all a corresponding and sympathetic pulse in the arm; thus, they suppose
one pulse to be situated in the heart, another in the lungs, a third in
the kidneys, and so forth; and the skill of the doctor consists in
discovering the prevailing pulse in the body, by its sympathetic
pulsations in the arm; and the mummery made use of on such occasions is
highly ludicrous.
By eating too freely of unripe fruit at _Chu-san_ I had a violent attack
of _cholera morbus_, and on application being made to the governor for a
little opium and rhubarb, he immediately dispatched to me one of his
physicians. With a countenance as grave and a solemnity as settled, as
ever was exhibited in a consultation over a doubtful case in London or
Edinburgh, he fixed his eyes upon the ceiling, while he held my hand,
beginning at the wrist, and proceeding towards the bending of the
elbow, pressing sometimes hard with one finger, and then light with
another, as if he was running over the keys of a harpsicord. This
performance continued about ten minutes in solemn silence, after which
he let go my hand and pronounced my complaint to have arisen from eating
something that had disagreed with the stomach. I shall not take upon me
to decide whether this conclusion was drawn from his skill in the pulse,
or from a conjecture of the nature of the complaint from the medicines
that had been demanded, and which met with his entire approbation, or
from a knowledge of the fact.
Le Compte, who had less reason to be cautious, from his having left the
country, than other missionaries who are doomed to remain there for
life, positively says, that the physicians always endeavour to make
themselves secretly acquainted with the case of the patient, before they
pronounce upon it, as their reputation depends more on their assigning
the true cause of the disorder than on the cure. He then proceeds to
tell a story of a friend of his who, being troubled with a swelling,
sent for a Chinese physician. This gentleman told him very gravely, that
it was occasioned by a small worm which, unless extracted by his skill,
would ultimately produce gangrene and certain death. Accordingly one day
after the tumour, by the application of a few poultices, was getting
better, the doctor contrived to drop upon the removed poultice a little
maggot, for the extraction of which he assumed to himself no small
degree of merit. Le Compte's stories, however, are not always to be
depended on.
The priests are also a kind of doctors, and make plaisters for a variety
of purposes, some to draw out the disease to the part applied, some as
charms against the evil spirit, and others which they pretend to be
aphrodisiac; all of which, and the last in particular, are in great
demand among the wealthy. In this respect the Chinese agree with most
nations of antiquity, whose priests were generally employed as
physicians. The number of quacks and venders of nostrums is immense in
every city who gain a livelihood by the credulity of the multitude. One
of this description exhibited in the public streets of Canton a powder
for sale as a specific for the bite of a snake; and to convince the
crowd of its immediate efficacy, he carried with him a species of this
reptile, whose bite was known to be extremely venemous. He applied the
mouth of the animal to the tip of his tongue, which began to swell so
very rapidly, that in a few minutes the mouth was no longer able to
contain it. The intumescence continued till it seemed to burst, and
exhibited a shocking sight of foam and blood, during which the quack
appeared in extreme agonies, and excited the commiseration of all the
bye-standers. In the height of the paroxysm he applied a little of his
powder to the nose and the inflamed member, after which it gradually
subsided, and the disorder disappeared. Though the probability in the
city of any one person being bit with a snake was not less perhaps than
a hundred thousand to one, yet every person present bought of the
miraculous powder, till a sly fellow maliciously suggested that the
whole of this scene might probably have been performed by means of a
bladder concealed in the mouth.
But the usual remedy for the bite of a snake is a topical application of
sulphur, or the bruised head of the same animal that gave the wound. The
coincidence of such an extravagant idea among nations as remote from
each other as the equator from the pole is sufficiently remarkable. A
Roman poet observes,
"Quum nocuit serpens, fertur caput illius apte
Vulneribus jungi: sanat quem sauciat ipsa."
_Q. Serenus de Medicina._
If to a serpent's bite its head be laid,
'Twill heal the wound which by itself was made.
The naked legs of the Hottentots are frequently stung by scorpions, and
they invariably endeavour to catch the animal, which they bruise and
apply to the wound, being confident of the cure; the Javanese, or
inhabitants of Java, are fully persuaded of the efficacy of such
application; and the author above quoted observes with regard to the
sting of this insect,
"Vulneribusque aptus, fertur revocare venenum."
Being applied to the wound, it is said to draw out the poison.
As it is a violation of good morals for a gentleman to be seen in
company with ladies, much more so to touch the hands of the fair, the
faculty rather than lose a fee, though it commonly amounts only to fifty
_tchen_, or the twentieth part of six shillings and eight-pence, have
contrived an ingenious way of feeling a lady's pulse: a silken cord
being made fast to the wrist of the patient is passed through a hole in
the wainscot into another apartment where the doctor, applying his hand
to the cord, after a due observance of solemn mockery, decides upon the
case and prescribes accordingly. About court, however, a particular
class of eunuchs only are entrusted with feeling the pulse of the
ladies.
The crowded manner in which the common people live together in small
apartments in all the cities, the confined streets and, above all, the
want of cleanliness in their persons, beget sometimes contagious
diseases that sweep off whole families, similar to the plague. In Pekin
incredible numbers perish in these contagious fevers, which more
frequently happen there than in other parts of the empire,
notwithstanding the moderate temperature of the climate. In the southern
provinces they are neither so general, nor so fatal as might be
expected, owing, I believe, in a very great degree, to the universal
custom among the mass of the people of wearing vegetable substances next
the skin which, being more cleanly, are consequently more wholesome than
clothing made from animal matter. Thus, linen and cotton are preferable
to silk and woollen next the skin, which should be worn only by persons
of the most cleanly habits. Another antidote to the ill effects that
might be expected from want of cleanliness in their houses and their
persons, is the constant ventilation kept up in the former both by day
and night: during warm weather, they have no other door but an open
matted skreen, and the windows are either entirely open or of thin paper
only. Notwithstanding their want of personal cleanliness, they are
little troubled with leprous or cutaneous diseases, and they pretend to
be totally ignorant of gout, stone, or gravel, which they ascribe to the
preventive effects of tea. In favour of this opinion, it has been
observed by some of our physicians, that since the introduction of tea
into common use, cutaneous diseases have become much more rare in Great
Britain than they were before that period, which others have ascribed,
perhaps with more propriety, to the general use of linen; both, however,
may have been instrumental in producing the happy effect.
The ravages of the small-pox, wherever they make their appearance, are
attended with a general calamity. Of these they pretend to distinguish
above forty different species, to each of which they have given a
particular name. If a good sort breaks out, inoculation or, more
properly speaking, infection by artificial means becomes general. The
usual way of communicating the disease is by inserting the matter,
contained in a little cotton wool, into the nostrils, or they put on the
clothes of, or sleep in the same bed with, such as may have had a
favourable kind; but they never introduce the matter by making any
incision in the skin. This fatal disease, as appears from the records of
the empire, was unknown before the tenth century, when it was perhaps
introduced by the Mahomedans of Arabia who, at that period, carried on a
considerable commerce with Canton from the Persian gulph, and who not
long before had received it from the Saracens, when they invaded and
conquered the Eastern Empire. The same disease was likewise one of those
blessings which the mad crusades conferred upon Europe; since which
time, to the close of the eighteenth century, not a hope had been held
out of its extirpation when, happily, the invaluable discovery of the
cow-pock, or rather the general application of that discovery, which
had long been confined to a particular district, has furnished abundant
grounds to hope, that this desirable event may now be accomplished.
In some of the provinces the lower orders of people are said to be
dreadfully afflicted with sore eyes, and this endemic complaint has been
supposed to proceed from the copious use of rice; a conjecture,
apparently, without any kind of foundation, as the Hindus and other
Indian nations, whose whole diet consists almost exclusively of this
grain, are not particularly subject to the like disease: and in Egypt,
both in ancient and modern times, the opthalmia and blindness were much
more prevalent than in China; yet rice was neither cultivated nor known
in that part of Africa until the reign of the caliphs, when it was
introduced from the eastward. The disease in China, if prevalent there,
may more probably be owing to their living in crowded and low
habitations, wherein there is a perpetual smoke from the fire, from
tapers made of sandal wood dust employed for marking the divisions of
the day, from the general use of tobacco, and from the miasma or noxious
vapours exhaling from the dirt and offals which are collected in or near
their habitations. The organ of sight may also be relaxed, and rendered
more susceptible of disease, by the constant practice of washing the
face, even in the middle of summer, with warm water. I must observe,
however, that in the course of our long journey, we saw very few blind
people, or persons afflicted with sore eyes.
It will readily be inferred, from the short view which has been taken of
the state of society, that the disease occasioned by an unrestrained and
promiscuous intercourse of the sexes cannot be very common in China. In
fact, it is scarcely known, and the treatment of it is so little
understood, in the few cases which do occur, that it is allowed to work
its way into the system, and is then considered by them as an incurable
leprosy. On arriving at the northern extremity of the province of
Canton, one of our conductors had imprudently passed the night in one of
those houses where, by the license of government, females are allowed to
prostitute their persons in order to gain a livelihood. Here, it seems,
he had caught the infection, and after suffering a considerable degree
of pain, and not less alarm, he communicated to our physician the
symptoms of his complaint, of the nature and cause of which he was
entirely ignorant. He was a man of forty years, of a vigorous
constitution and a gay cheerful temper, and had served as an officer in
several campaigns from the different provinces of northern Tartary to
the frontiers of India, yet such a disease did not consist with his
knowledge. From this circumstance, and many others of a similar kind, I
conclude that, although it may sometimes make its appearance in the
capital, and even here but very rarely, it has originally, and no long
time ago, found its way thither through the ports of Chu-san, Canton,
and Macao, where numbers of abandoned woman obtain their subsistence by
selling their favours to such of every nation as may be disposed to
purchase them. It is, in fact, sometimes called by the Chinese the
_Canton-ulcer_.
No male physician is ever allowed to prescribe for pregnant women; and
they consider it so great a breach of delicacy for a man to be in the
same room with a woman when in labour that, whatever difficulties may
occur, the case is left entirely to the woman who attends her. There is
not a man-midwife in all China, and yet the want of them does not appear
to be injurious to population. They could scarcely believe it possible
that, in Europe, men should be allowed to practice a profession which,
in their minds, belonged exclusively to the other sex.
As a due knowledge of the organization of the human body, of the powers
and functions of the several parts, is attainable only by the study of
practical anatomy, a study that would shock the weak nerves of a timid
Chinese, it will not be expected that their surgical operations should
either be numerous or neatly performed. The law indeed which I have had
occasion to notice, and the effects produced by it in two or three
instances that occurred to our knowledge, will sufficiently explain the
very low ebb of chirurgical skill. No one will readily undertake to
perform the most simple operation, where not only all the direct
consequences, but the contingencies for forty days must lie at his door.
They sometimes succeed in reducing a dislocation, and in setting a
simple fracture; but in difficult and complicated cases, the patient is
generally abandoned to chance. Amputation is never practised. In the
course of our whole journey, wherein we passed through millions of
people, I do not recollect to have seen a single individual that had
sustained the loss of a limb, and but very few in any way maimed; from
whence I conclude, that accidents are uncommon, or that serious ones
usually terminate in the loss of life. A Chinese is so dreadfully afraid
of a sharp cutting instrument, that he has not even submitted to the
operation of blood-letting; though the principle is admitted, as they
are in the practice of drawing blood by scarifying the skin, and
applying cupping vessels. In certain complaints they burn the skin with
small pointed irons made hot, and sometimes, after puncturing the part
with silver needles, they set fire to the leaves of a species of
Artemisia upon it, in the same manner as the Moxa in Japan is made use
of to cure and even prevent a number of diseases, but especially the
gout and rheumatism, the former of which is said to be unknown in China.
Cleansing the ears, cutting corns, pulling the joints till they crack,
twitching the nose, thumping on the back, and such like operations, are
annexed to the shaving profession, by which thousands in every city gain
a livelihood. In short, the whole medical skill of the Chinese may be
summed up in the words of the ingenious Doctor Gregory from the
information he obtained from his friend Doctor Gillan. "In the greatest,
most ancient, and most civilized empire on the face of the earth, an
empire that was great, populous, and highly civilized two thousand years
ago, when this country was as savage as New Zealand is at present, no
such good medical aid can be obtained among the people of it, as a smart
boy of sixteen, who had been but twelve months apprentice to a good and
well employed Edinburgh Surgeon, might reasonably be expected to
afford." "If," continues the Doctor, "the Emperor of China, the absolute
monarch of three hundred and thirty-three millions of people, more than
twice as many as all Europe contains, were attacked with a pleurisy, or
got his leg broken, it would be happy for him to get such a boy for his
first physician and serjeant-surgeon. The boy (if he had seen his
master's practice in but one or two similar cases) would certainly know
how to set his Imperial Majesty's leg, and would probably cure him of
his pleurisy, which none of his own subjects could do."
Having thus given a slight sketch of the state of some of the leading
branches in science, arts, and manufactures, omitting purposely that of
agriculture, which will be noticed among the subjects of a future
section, I think, upon the whole, it may fairly be concluded, that the
Chinese have been among the first nations, now existing in the world, to
arrive at a certain pitch of perfection, where, from the policy of the
government, or some other cause, they have remained stationary: that
they were civilized, fully to the same extent they now are, more than
two thousand years ago, at a period when all Europe might be considered,
comparatively, as barbarous; but that they have since made little
progress in any thing, and been retrograde in many things: that, at this
moment, compared with Europe, they can only be said to be great in
trifles, whilst they are really trifling in every thing that is great. I
cannot however exactly subscribe to an opinion pronounced on them by a
learned and elegant writer[22], who was well versed in oriental
literature, as being rather too unqualified; but he was less acquainted
with their character than that of any other Asiatic nation, and totally
ignorant of their language. "Their letters," says he, "if we may so
call them, are merely the symbols of ideas; their philosophy seems yet
in so rude a state, as hardly to deserve the appellation; they have no
ancient monuments from which their origin can be traced, even by
plausible conjecture; their sciences are wholly exotic; and their
mechanical arts have nothing in them characteristic of a particular
family; nothing which any set of men, in a country so highly favoured by
nature, might not have discovered and improved."
[22] Sir William Jones.
CHAP. VII.
Government--Laws--Tenures of Land and Taxes--Revenues--Civil and
Military Ranks, and Establishments.
_Opinions on which the Executive Authority is grounded.--Principle on
which an Emperor of China seldom appears in public.--The
Censorate.--Public Departments.--Laws.--Scale of Crimes and
Punishments.--Laws regarding Homicide.--Curious Law Case.--No Appeal
from Civil Suits.--Defects in the Executive Government.--Duty of
Obedience and Power of personal Correction.--Russia and China
compared.--Fate of the Prime Minister_ Ho-chang-tong_.--Yearly
Calendar and Pekin Gazette, engines of Government.--Freedom of the
Press.--Duration of the Government attempted to be
explained.--Precautions of Government to prevent Insurrections.--Taxes
and Revenues.--Civil and Military Establishments.--Chinese Army, its
Numbers and Appointments.--Conduct of the Tartar Government at the
Conquest.--Impolitic Change of late Years, and the probable Consequences
of it._