The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-02-25
JAPANESE MOXA CURE.
How Patients are Treated with Burning
Cones of Sticky Dough.

How Patients are Trea ed with Burning
Cones of Sticky Dough.
While we lunched in the open quad
rangle before the temple groups of
,cheery japanese came in, chattering as
sgayly as any picnickner could wish to,
took off their straw sandals, washed
their feet, and disappeared in jolly
parties to the interior of the temple.
When we dropped our shoes and fol-
lowed to the one upper room, we found
our jolly chatterers all there, sitting in
rows with their faces to the walls. All
were stripped to the waist. and the old
priest made marks on their backs in
sacred characters to indicate where the
moxa should be burned. Following
him came a small boy with a lump of
what appeared to be very sticky dough
in one hand. With dexterous fingers
this youngster pinched off piece OF
dough, rolled it into small cone, and
stuck it over the priests mark. After
him came staid, stoical youngstcr.
who in the most cold-blooded way
touched a match to the tip Of
Che moxa cone and went down tho
lines giving lights. 1t burned without
flame, slow red glow like charcoal,
consuming the cone down to the flesh,
where it sizzled and smoked for a few
seconds, that must have seemed years to
the victims. Soaring with q red-hot
iron would be quick and humane treat.
ment compared to this slow-eating fire
of the moxa The men and women that
i watched for the few minutes that
could endure it, stood it heroically, but
by the tension of every muscle in their
backs and arms one could Judge of their
agony. One old man folded his arms,
bent his head over and INDUCED in
suppressed chuckles that varied with
groans and hysterical ha! ha! has! A
woman buried her face in blue cotton
towel and made no sign or movement,
while two moXa cones were burning
down and into her flesh. A young man
started to rock to and fro when the
fire began entering into his very bones.
but soon stopped it, braced himself, and
sat motionless. The priest, having set
his seal on his victims, sat down by q
.brazier, put on his big spectacles, and
was lost in reading pious book, wholly
indifferent to the row of backs frizzling
beside him. This mine priest has some
secret of composition for his moxa
dough that has kept ii in favor for
many years, and about the only reve-
nue. of the temple is from his patients
fees. For rheumatism. lumbago, and
such aches and ills it is most beneficial,
and gives quick relief to any one heroic
enough to endure it. The japanese
resort to moxa for almost everything
that ais them, and one sees coolies
with their backs and the calves of their
legs covered with moxa scars. Foreign
doctors have discovered the virtues Of
the treatment for certain things, and in
Paris many cases of paralysis have been
successfully treated, Charles Sumner
having been one of the famous cases,
whose paralyzed nerves were revived
by the moxa. A variation of the treat
ment used in Paris under the name of
mOxa consists in burning with white
hot irons, which is much less painful
than with paste cones, and Clara Nor
iris was one of the best advertised sub
.jects undergoing the white-iron moxa.
When the patients descended from the
moxa room, put on their sandals, and
mutered sullen prayer toward the
open door of the temple they were
hardly to be identified with the gay
people who had arrived earlier; and
when they walked, it was plain by the
way they held their shoulders, that the
raw pieces etill smnrted. 81 Louis
q '~i uoya{.