able to make the great advance
during the last period. The nature of the primitive religions was
responsible to a great extent for the nature of the method of healing,
therefore, appeasing the offended deity and exorcising the demon were
therapeutic as well as religious ceremonies.

The Chinese of to-day, except in some of the seaboard cities, must be
classed among the earliest civilizations, for their mode of living has
not changed much in the last two or three milleniums. Their system of
medical practice partakes of the character of that found among the early
people, with some slight modifications which show some relationship to
the European practice during the Dark Ages.

All sorts of disgusting doses are administered, and incantations and
exorcisms are among the most effective methods of healing. For
example, Hardy reports that a missionary told him of his being called
in to see a man suffering from convulsions; he found him smelling
white mice in a cage, with a dead fowl fastened on his chest, and a
bundle of grass attached to his feet. This had been the prescription
of a native physician.

Medicines are made from asses' sinews, fowls' blood, bears' gall,
shaving of a rhinoceros' horn, moss grown on a coffin, and the dung of
dogs, pigs, fowl, rabbits, pigeons, and bats. Cockroach tea, bear-paw
soup, essence of monkey paw, toads' eyebrows, and earth-worms rolled
in honey are common doses. The excrement of a mosquito is considered
as efficacious as it is scarce, and here, as in Europe in the Middle
Ages, the hair of the dog that bit you is used to heal the bite and to
prevent hydrophobia. An infusion from the bones of a tiger is believed
to confer courage, strength, and agility, and the flesh of a snake is
boiled and eaten to make one cunning and wise. Chips from coffins
which have been let down into the grave are boiled and are said to
possess great virtue for catarrh. Flies, fleas, and bedbugs prepared
in different ways are given for various diseases. Medicines are given
in all forms, and not infrequently pills are as large as a pigeon's
egg. If any of these medicines ever had any beneficent effect it must
have been through mental rather than through physical means.

Nevius has left us in no doubt concerning the belief in demons among
the Chinese, and of the effect this belief has on their theory of
disease. Certain forms are daily observed to drive away the evil
spirits. For this purpose Taoist priests are hi