The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1875-11-05
A Chinese Drugstore.

Our next stopping-place is but a few
doors away, at = drug-stOre-Heaven
save the mark. and save us, too, from
the drugs dispensed therei If any one
hcsitates about consulting the great DR..
Li-pO-tai, or has only a half faith in his
wonderful cures, let him visit the drug
store ut the southwest corner of Dupont
and Jackson Streets and take a look at
the Celestial mGlerG1 mclica. The 20
lice-Ofiicer escorts Us in: We each draw
and swallow u cup of hot tea from the
urn that seems to stand ready for all
corners, and without so much rs Z" BY
your leave" to the gentlcmanly drug
gist in attendace. The skillful COM
FOUNDER of medicines stands by and
beams upon us with hospitable smiles,
and when at last we look up at him
bows and shakes his clasped hands ut
Us with real courtesy. This ~politeness
is wasted, at least upon the pOllcc-Otfi-
Ger, who passes behind the counter and
introduces to our notice the drawers
and shelves, the latter well filed with
walls and gallipots. The externals of u
drug store are at any rate well main
tained-the little bundles of chips and
sticks, like slippery elm and liquorice,
the drawers and the jars, are, with Il lit
tie mental substitution of gilded Latin
for red Chinese letters, suggestive of the
deadlier portions of the civilized drug
store, emitting, of course, the innocent
toothbrush, %perfumery and sOda-fOun-
tain elements of the latter. The officer
now takes out Il drawer, which he places
before us: it is divided into four equal
compartments, Il containing partially
charred bones Of lions and tigers; an
other dried bugs-not blistering cam
tharideS, but genuine beetles and tum-
ble-bugs; a third, some lentile-like
seeds; and the fourth, small fragments
of bark. These four compounds when
ground and mixed form q simple which
either corresponds with the four elc-
ments or powerfully affects the fourth
department Of 4 wholly visionary and
imaginary humanity.
Imperial edicts and dire penalties
have for countless ages forbidden all in
spect:On of the human body beneath the
skin. Medical science has therefore
been driven to evolve from its own in
ner consciousness 4 theory of bodily
structure which IS Ingenious and SYM
mctrical, but wholly unlike the teach
ings of VI " physiology. We saw
medical chart of the human interior in
which something not greatly unlike Wis
ccra were p!cntiiUI!y arranged in regu
lar rows OF parallels, and generously
piled up almost t. the chin. For such
I'm Internal economyu no doubt the mixed
tigers bones and tumblc-burs are tonic
and ctlectUal.
But the officer Is exhibiting several
other drawers. One Of them contains
rhinoceros-horn shayin@s, saffron, dried
leeches and soapstonc for its four mys-
tic elements; another. dried centipedes,
elephants skin, verdi"ris and goats
beard; and so on through the list of the
healing drugs. and the gallipots-
quaint little carthen vessels with red
labels in character-cOntain such soy
ereign remedies a alligator's gall, ASS
glue, the flesh Of dogs, and many other
specifics that Il scientific mind alone
could appreciate. We looked and Won
dcred with such faith and reverence as
was in us, and then glanced into q small
back room where a druggists apprcn-
ticc, naked to the waist, was compound
ING some witch's brew of such direful
potency that we closed the door with Il
bang and ran bowling to the open air
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