ntitled to the
Championship of the world.

The Coreans are much affected mentally by dreams, and being, as we have
already seen, an extremely superstitious race, they attach great
importance to their nocturnal visions. A good deal of hard _cash_ is
spent in getting the advice of astrologers, who pretend to understand and
explain the occult art, and pleasure or consternation is thus usually the
result of what might have been explained naturally either by one of the
above-named causes, or by the victim having feasted the previous evening
on something indigestible. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the
Corean mind is seldom thrown off its balance altogether. Idiocy is not
frequent, and lunacy is uncommon.

Insanity, when it does exist, generally exhibits itself under the form of
melancholia and dementia, and is more frequently found among the upper
than among the lower classes. With the men it is generally due to
intemperance and excesses, and is occasionally accompanied by paralysis.
Among the women, the only cases which came under my notice were of wives
whose husbands had many concubines, and of young widows. Suicide is not
unfrequently practised among the latter; partly in consequence of the
strict Corean etiquette, but often also caused by insanity when it does
not follow immediately upon the husband's death. Another cause of
melancholia--chiefly, however, among the lower classes--is a dreadful
complaint, which has found its way among the natives in its most
repulsive form. Many are affected by it, and no cure for it seems to have
been devised by the indigenous doctors. The accounts one hears in the
country of its ravages are too revolting to be repeated in these pages,
and I shall limit myself to this. Certain forms of insanity are
undoubtedly a common sequence to it.

Leprosy also prevails in Cho-sen, and in the more serious cases seems to
affect the brain, producing idiocy. This disease is caused by poverty of
blood, and is, of course, hereditary. I have seen two forms of it in
Cho-sen; in the one case, the skin turns perfectly white, almost shining
like satin, while in the other--a worse kind, I believe--the skin is a
mass of brown sores, and the flesh is almost entirely rotted away from
the bones. The Coreans have no hospitals or asylums in which evils like
these can be properly tended. Those affected with insanity are generally
looked after by their own families, and, if considered dangerous, are
usu