The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-11-18
q CHINESE QUARTER.
No. ".

W.
Just when the weighing scales in use now by
the Chinese were invented is not known. It
must have been a long time ago, for nothing in
common use by this people is new. The, TO US,
old fashioned 8 steel-yard " is patterned after the
balances in use by them. A smooth tapering
rod of hard wood has a silk cord fastened to 1t
by means of which tits suspended in equilibrium
when the pan on the short end of the stick Is
balanced by a movable weight placed at the zero
point on the other side. Place an unknown
quantity of some substance in the pan of the
balance and down it goes. Shove along the
weight until the pan rises, push the weight back
wards and forwards q few times, and finally you
find q point where the stick remains in a hori-
zontal position. Read off the nearest symbol
and add TO II the little white dots from the SYM
Dol to the weight, and there you have II. The
only elements of uncertainty that there may be
In this method of weighing are those due to the
absence of any pointer 10 indicate small depart
ures from the horizontal on the part of the stick.
However, as a friend of ours remarked, "a half
ounce or so of powdered reaches wings, or eye
teetL of a shark can't make much different any
how, to q sick man." And while talking of sick
men, one comes in after his daily potion. He
Is old, very old. His meagre little links are
made much more slender and stick like by the
loose pajamas. A world too wide for his
SHRINK shank, y and his slim wrists and delicate
hands emerge from the voluminous sleeves of
his loose silk jacket AS he clings to the counter.
His thin cracking speech briefly indicates his
wants, and lead to the production by the learned
Snemlst IN attendance oil TWO or three quaint
looking jars and boxes. Preparatory, however,
to the dispensing of the desired drugs, the afore-
said chemist mounts a pair of spectacles especi-
ally manufactured for the use of the faculty
The glasses are circular in shape. measuring
from one and a half inches in diameter to three.
These discs are set in horn frames which are Sc
curely fastened behind the head under the cue
with stout silken cords. The diameter of
the glasses are supposed to indicate the
amount of wisdom and professional skill of
the wearer. An ordinary medico, fresh from
the medical college, must not wear glasses
OF more than one inch in diameter. With
each decade OF practice he adds TO this di-
ameter, Until they measure two and a half
inches across and cover most of the upper
part of the face. Nothing can exceed the
look of gravity that these huge glasses inn
part. In fact any one who can wear them
and view himself in n looking glass without
caring wit n laughter at his own image
must have as much command over his
facial muscles as the Egyptian sphynX.
Passing into the surgery" screened off
from the main room, we find a patient being
operated on for toothache. We say oper-
ated on, for instead of pulling out the aching
grinder, the surgeon extracts the worm that
causes the pain. The patient being seated
on a little bamboo stool his head is clamped
between the surgeons knees, who then pro-
ceeds to battle the tooth and gums with
some soothing compound. After a while he
begins TO peer closely into his patients
mouth, and then introduces IA slender rod,
INK ldBCAAh6 Gnu " lAlC 10 cAtBhiN "a OF0
and smeared with some tempting bait "
that the worm" is supposed to be fond OF.
This being turned around in the cavity of
the diseased tooth is seized upon by the
worm, and when he once nipsit he permits
himself to be wound up on the rod and is
then gradually drawn out of his lair, and
the patient is pronounced cured ! That
some straightforward is practiced there is
but little doubt, for there is certainly a
white thread-like substance wound up on
the tip of the rod when the operation is fin
ished that WAS not there in the beginning.
If the tooth aches after the "worm" is
drawn out, it is because the whole was not
extracted, and then the tooth must be
pulled, not necessarily for its extirpation,
but as a guarantee of the removal of the
rest of his wOrmship. Thanks to the efficacy
of two operations the patient is freed from
pain as effectually as if he had been oper-
ated on by 4 foreign dentist. For stomach
ache, especially in young children, a couple
of gongs are soaked in a soothing syrup pre-
pared from the recipe of the wife of a cele-
brated Mandarin named Missile Window,
of the dynasty of Hi-Kwaki Ken-ne-to, and
these gongs being beaten vigorously in the
same room with the little sufferer impart
their benificent influence to the atmosphere,
which being inhaled, drives away the pain.