The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-03-29
The Japanese Noxa Cure.

While we lunched in the open quad
rangle before the temple, groups of
CHEEKY japanese came in, chattering
as gay!y as any picnickers could wish
to, took Oft 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 chartterers 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 dex-
ferrous fingers this youngster pinched
off bit of dough, rolled it into a small
cone, and stuck it over the priests
mark. After him came staid, stoical
youngster, VINO in the most cold-blood-
ed way touched match to the tip of
the moXa cone and went down the
lines giving lights. 1t burned without
flame, ii slow red glow like charcoal
consuming 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 quick and humane
treatment compared to this slow-eat-
ing ire OF the mOXa. The men and
women that | 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
chuekles that varied with groans and
hysterical ha! ha! has! A woman bur-
led 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
70 rock to and fro when the fire began
entering into his very bones, but soon
stopped it, braced himself, and sat
mouonless. The priest, having set his
seal on his victims, sat down by a
brazier, put on his big spectacles, and
was lost il reading pious book, Who'll
ly indifferent to the row of backs friz-
zling beside him. This mine priest
has some secret of composition for his
moxa dough that has kept it in favor
for many years, and about the only
revenue of the temple is from his
patients fees. For rheumatism, lum-
bago, and such aches and ills it is most
beneficial, and gives quick relief to
anyone heroic enough to endure it.
The japanese resort to moXa for al
most everything that ails 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 success
fully treated, Charles Summer having
been one of the famous cases, whose
paralyzed nerves were revived by the
noXa. A variation of the treatment
used in Paris under the name of moxa
consists in burning with white-hot
irons, which is much less painful than
with naste ones, and Clara Morris was
one OF the best-advertisod subjects un-
dergoing the whte-iron moxa. When
the patients descended from the moxa
room, put on their sandals, and NUT
tered a 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
places still smarted.