copies of European telescopes; but a little science became requisite in the construction of instruments consisting of compound lenses, and they accordingly failed. When, however, a few specimens of Sir David Brewster's optical toy, the kaleidoscope, first reached Canton, these were easily imitated. The Chinese became exceedingly taken with them; vast numbers were immediately manufactured on the spot, and sent up the country, under the appropriate name of Wân-hud-tung, or "tubes of ten thousand flowers."

The jargon employed in their pseudo-science, and the singular resemblance which this bears to the condition of physical knowledge, not very long ago, even in our own country, is deserving of some remark. It is pretty generally known that, within a comparatively recent period of our history, the sciences of medicine and astrology were very gravely combined. A rather handsome monument in Mortlake churchyard, dated as late as 1715, bears a Latin inscription to the memory of "John Partridge, Astrologer and Doctor of Medicine, who made physic for

two kings and one queen, to wit, Charles II., William III., and Queen Mary." It was the deplorable condition of the healing art about or a little before that period, in France, also, that exposed it to the unmerciful ridicule of Molière. It is likely that most readers may not have fallen in with a thick quarto volume, dated 1647, and entitled 'A modest Treatise of Astrologie, by William Lilly.'* The work is dedicated to Bolstrod Whitlock, Esq., Member of Parliament, and among other matter contains "Astrological aphorisms beneficiall for Physicians ;"-as, "He that first enters upon a cure in the hour of Mars shall find his patient disaffected to him, and partly disdain and reject his medicines, his pains ill-rewarded, and his person slighted." In the same work are expounded the supposed connexions between the several planets and the parts of the body: "He will be infinitely oppressed (says this learned Theban) who in the hour of Mars shall first get an hot disease, and in the hour of Saturne a cold one;""When Jupiter is author of the sicknesse, he demonstrates ill-affection of the liver ;"-" Mars being the cause of a feaver, and in Leo, shows ebolition or a boyling of the humours, continuall burning feavers, whose originall cause springs from the great veines near the heart.”†

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* The person ridiculed by Butler under the name of Sidrophel, who is made to defend his art in the following convincing manner :

"Is it not ominous in all countries

When crows and ravens croak upon trees?

The Roman senate, when within

The city walls an owl was seen,

Did cause their clergy, with lustrations,

(By 'r synod call'd humiliations,)

The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert

From doing town and country hurt :

And if an owl have so much power,

Why should not planets have much more?" &c.

They have also some vague notions of the humoral pathology, long since exploded in this country, but alluded to in the above ex

Compare this with the following scheme of Chinese physics, on which are based all their medical as well as other theories, and in which will be perceived precisely the same relations as those noticed in the foregoing quotations from Lilly.

In treating of the planets and their significations, “Saturne (quoth Lilly) is cold and dry, melancholic, earthly ;” "Jupiter governeth all infirmities in the liver; of colours, sea-green or blew, a mixt yellow or green;""Mars, in nature hot and dry, he delighteth in red colour, and in those savours which are bitter, sharp, and burn the tongue;" "Venus, in colours she signifieth white;""Mercury, in the elements he is the water." The several relations are here identical, and all this looks very much as if the philosophy of our forefathers had been derived intermediately from China. It is this easy plan of systematizing without experiment that has kept the latter country in the dark, and infested every department of its physical knowledge ; while the inductive philosophy recommended in the Novum Organon of Bacon has done such wonders in Europe. As a specimen of Chinese reasoning, nothing can well be

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tracts. They talk (as Dr. Abel correctly states) of ulcers being outlets to noxious matter, and divide diseases and remedies into two classes, hot and cold, depending greatly on purgatives for driving out the heat of the body."

imagined more silly than the following:-" The upper half of the body partakes of the Yang, and the nature of the heaven, and the medicines suited to that part of the body are the heads of plants; the body of the plant is for diseases of the middle," &c.

And yet, when they condescend to abandon their theories, and to be guided by observation and common sense, they can occasionally talk very differently. Dentrecolles translated a medical treatise composed by a Chinese practitioner, and called Chang-seng, or "long life," being in fact an essay on diet and regimen. This, as it proceeds entirely on the personal experience of the individual, really contains something that is both true and useful.* Among us, such a work might be arranged under the four heads of Air, Exercise, Diet, and the Passions. Chinese author has likewise chosen four heads, but calls them "the Passions, Diet, the Actions of the Day, and the Rest at Night," comprising, however, much that is the same in reality under different names. They have a high notion of the value of sleep; and their maxim is, that " one sleepless night cannot be compensated by ten nights of sleep."

Our

As remarked by Dr. Abel, the drug-shops of the Chinese contain an immense list of simples, a few gums, and some minerals. These are sold in small packets, each containing a dose enveloped in a wrapper, which describes the use of the medicine. Chinese doctors paste up and distribute hand-bills in the same manner with the lower walks of the faculty among us, and generally with reference to the same diseases. The druggists' shops are remarkable for their superior cleanliness, and not unlike

* The author is glad to find his opinion confirmed by that of Mr. Herbert Mayo, who observes, in reference to some portions of this treatise-"In substance they are excellent."-Philosophy of Living, p. 171.

those of Europe in the arrangement of the drawers, jars, &c. It is well known that the most considerable work on Chinese materia medica is the famous Pun-tsaou, or Herbal, which is not confined to botany merely, as its name might imply, but extends to the animal and mineral kingdoms also. At the head of all remedies stands ginseng, which used once to be sold for eight times its weight in silver. Tea, in various modes of preparation, is much valued as a medicine; and different parts of rare animals are included in the list, with the reputation of properties as multifarious and inconsistent as the pills of a London quack.

In some instances they show a whimsical preference to one substance over another, which apparently possesses exactly the same nature and qualities. From the laurus camphora, a large timber-tree, which grows plentifully in their own country, they obtain easily and cheaply vast quantities of camphor, which is sold as low as a few pence the pound. Instead of this, however, they use in medicine a species which is imported from Sumatra and Borneo, in very small fragments about the size of a pea, picked in a crystallized state from the interior of the dryobalanops camphora, and sold at Canton for a price which is equivalent to 47. sterling the pound weight. As a drastic medicine, the pa-tow (croton tiglium) is used in combination with rhubarb. Among the most effectual means for the alleviation or removal of local pain, they reckon the appli'cation of the moxa, or actual cautery. This moxa is prepared by bruising the stems of an artemisia, called gaetsaou, in a mortar, and then selecting the most downy fibres. These, being set on fire upon the part affected, are said to consume rapidly without producing any severe pain. The fibre of the artemisia is also used by the Chinese as tinder for lighting their pipes, being previously