Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/67

 their ignorance of anatomy—have not advanced, in surgery, beyond the most primitive state of that art.

The science of public health is quite unknown in China. In a Chinese treatise entitled "Long Life," the following advice is given: "Always rise early in the morning, take some breakfast before you leave your residence, drink a little tea before eating, at the mid-day meal partake of well-cooked but not too highly salted food, eat slowly, take a nap of two hours after the meal, eat lightly at night, and, before going to bed, rinse your mouth with tea and have the soles of your feet rubbed until they are warm." (Neuburger.)

Up to the latter part of the nineteenth century of the present era, Japan, so far as medical matters are concerned, differed in no material respect from China. During the last fifty or sixty years, however,—that is, since the visit of Commodore Perry, of the United States Navy, to that country,—wonderful changes have taken place; and now Japan, as a result of her determination to adopt the methods of education, of utilizing steam and electric power, etc., has already taken a leading place in the council of nations. The physicians, many of whom received their training in the best schools of Europe and the United States, are contributing to-day their full share toward advancing the science of medicine. That China is following in the footsteps of Japan is already plainly evident, and no intelligent observer entertains the slightest doubt of her ultimately—probably at no distant day—possessing a corps of medical men as well educated, as efficient in the treatment of disease, and as practical in public hygiene as their European and American confrères. During thousands of years China has suffered severely from the blighting tyranny of superstition, priestcraft and selfish bureaucracy, and, now that the sunlight of truth and genuine liberty is beginning to search every nook and cranny of that great country, we who have had the advantage of this beneficent influence for so many scores of years truly rejoice over the change that is taking place in China.