ould they be when you consider the gallons of
filthy tea which they drink daily, and the liquor to which they are so
partial? This poisonous concoction is enough to destroy the gastric
juices of an ostrich! The tongue, as I have mentioned already, is
invariably thickly furred with a whitish coating, and Tibetans have often
complained to me of tumours as well as of painful burnings in the
stomach, the latter undoubtedly caused by ulcerations. It is to be
regretted that, even in the high land of Tibet, the worst of all sexual
diseases (called by the Tibetans _Boru_) has made vast numbers of
victims, palpable traces of it showing themselves in eruptions,
particularly on the forehead and on the ears, round the mouth and under
the nostrils, on the arms and legs. In cases of very long standing, a
peculiar whitish discoloration of the skin and gums was to be noticed,
with abnormal contraction of the pupils. That such a disease is well
rooted in the country we have proof enough in the foul teeth which the
majority of Tibetans possess. In nearly all cases that I examined, the
teeth were, even in young men, so loose, decayed and broken as to make me
feel quite sorry for their owners, and during the whole time I was in
Tibet--and I came in contact with several thousand people--I believe that
I could almost count on my fingers the sets of teeth that appeared quite
regular, healthy and strong. As a rule, too, the women had better teeth
than the men. No doubt the admixture of bad blood in the Tibetan race
contributes a great deal to the unevenness and malformation of their
teeth, and if we add to this the fact that the corruption of the blood,
even apart from disease, is very great owing to their peculiar laws of
marriage, it is not surprising that the services of dentists are
everywhere required. The teeth of Tibetans are generally of such a
brittle nature that the dentist of Tibet--usually a Lama and a blacksmith
as well--has devised an ingenious way of protecting them from further
destruction by means of a silver cap encasing the broken tooth. I once
saw a man with all his front teeth covered in this fashion, and as the
dentist who had attended to him had constructed the small cases
apparently with no regard to shape or comfort, but had made most of them
end in a point for mastication's sake, the poor man had a ghastly
appearance every time that he opened his mouth. The Tibetans are not very
sensitive to physical pain, as I have had