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 CHAPTER XVI.

The Village Doctor.

all the world there is probably no country more burdened with doctors than Korea. I had a mind to write "cursed with doctors," but I thought that this might not be understood, even though I tried to explain what I meant. When I remember that this is to be read by people who hold the doctor in the highest esteem, I myself being among that number, I do not want to write one sentence that would in any way cast reflection on the doctor as we know him.

It would not be true to say that our village doctor knows nothing of remedies that are helpful to suffering humanity, and is therefore altogether worthless. He is not so much to be condemned for what he does not know as for what he pretends to know. I am sure that I am within the bounds of truth when I say the country would be much better off without him than it is with him — that is to say, I believe that he does much more harm than he does good. He is usually an ignorant man, even from the standpoint of his own countrymen. He has not been trained in any medical school; he has never even heard of such an institution. Whatever he may know that is of any value to humanity is what has been learned and handed down from generation to generation of the use of teas made from herbs and barks. As for his knowledge of anatomy, he has never heard of such a thing, and does not even (150)