Taking Pills by the Hundred

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume IV, Issue 1058, 4 August 1904, Page 3

Taking Pills by the Hundred

Tub patont pill habit, which is said by tho .jnediaal journals to oause moro djspepsia than it cures, bns at any rute tho sanction of antiquity, In an auiolo whioh Dr, HNorria, a naval surgoon on the Oblna Station, contributes to ono ot tho medical journals ho remarks that (lobcb in tho Chinese pharmacopeia are invariably largo, and that pills are" talton by thehuudred." The Chinosc, ho adds, possess an cnor* moils voneration for antiquity, and bosides powdered deers, horns to promote longevity and tigers' bones to promote bravery dose themselves with fossil ivory, tail orabs and shells, ancient soot, and W&tor in which a fow " cash" of an early dynasty have been boiled, Other'imaginative remedies are scon pioDS, dried silkworms, bakod toads, wasp cents, and cockroaches, At tho end of a considorablo catalogue o! similar prophylaxies, Dr. Norria observes thai, though hin list is far from complete, it will show thioughwhata varied range of thought Chinese idc»s havo moved in attempts to uoliove tho diseases common to humanity. If the remedies aro in tbumselves nauseating the nomenclature of the drugs-tho gilding of tho pill-is almost library, "The arrow of the hundred Bjidioinesi'' " ThundcrpilU," " Water dngon bones," " Tho King of tho field boundaries," " Thousand tads' worth of Bond "-evidently tho original of a guinea a box—aro somo Gf the names, Perhaps th) most ourious of all prevention medicine is that of soup mado from a black cat which is drunk by blacksmiths iu Canton to provent burns from hot metal,