The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-01-27
BACK BURNING IN JAPAN.
The Process Used by the Priests on
Their Victims.
From the G1obe-Democrdt.

From, the Globe Democrat.
YOKOHAMA, Dec. 15-While we lunched
in the open quadrangle before the temple
groups of CHEEKY japanese came in chatter
ing as gayly as any picnickers could wish
to. took Off their straw sandals, washed
their feet. and disappeared in jolly parties
to the interior of the temple. When we
droDped our shoes and followed 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 small boy with what appeared TO be
very sticky dough in one hand. With dex-
ferrous fingers this youngster pinched off a
bit of dough, rolled it INTO a small cone,
and stuck it over the priests mark After
him came staid, stoical youngster, who in
the most cold-blooded way, touched match
to the tip of the moxa cone, and went down
the lines giving lights. 1t burned without
fame. slow, red glow like charcoal con-
suming the cone down to the flesh, where it
sizzled and smoked for few seconds, that
must have seemed years to the victims
Soaring with a red-hot iron would be aquick
and humane treatment compared to this
slow eating fire of the moxa.
L
the few minutes that l could endure il
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 in
dulged in suppressed chuckleS that varied
with croans and hysterical Ha! Ha! Ha'sl
A woman buried her face in blue cotton
towel and made no sign or movement,
while two moxa cones were burning down
Ao-l, ma or fa1
to rock to and fro when the fire began en-
terinr into his very bones, but soon stopped
IT, braced himself, and sat motlonless. The
nriest having set his seal on his victims, sat
down by brazier, put on his big spectacles,
and was soon lost in reading "a plous book,
wholly Indifferent to the row Of backs
frizzling beside him.
This mine priest has some secret or com
nosition for his moxa dough that has kept
II in favor for many years, and about the
only revenue of the temple is from his
natients fees. For rheumatism, Iumbago
and such aches and ills it is most beneficial,
aud gives quick relief to any one heroic
enou9h to endure it. The japanese resort
to moxa for almost everything thaU aus
them. and one secs coolies with their backs
and the calves of their legs covered with
moxa scars. Foreign doctors have discov-
ered the virtue of the treatment for certain
thinos and in Paris many cases
Of PARALYSIS have been successfully
treated. Charles Sumner having been one
of the femous cases, whose paralyzed
nerves were revived by the moxa. a varia-
tion of the treatment used IN farls unuer
tba name of moxa consists in burning with
white-bot irons, which is much less painful
than with paste cones, and Clara Morris
was one of the best advertised subjects I'M
dergoing the white iron foxa. When the
natients descended from the moxa room,
mt on their sandals and muttered a sIllen
Drawer toward the open door OF the temple,
they were hardly TO DO identited WIN we
yhan they walked, IL was plain BY the way
they held their shoulders that the raw places
still smarted.