The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1902-11-13
QUEER ORIENT nRucs
spotted RhinoceIos Horn For Intestinal
Disorders.


spotted RhinoceIos Horn For Intestinal
Disorders.
At any Chinese drug store there nj
be obtained for twenty-five cents an
assortment of dried herbs, insects and
other weird things composing n pre-
scription that. 1t is said, win cure the
ailments OF ordinary people. When 1t
comes to the sickness Of q wealthy
Chinamal, of ours there are drugs
which are as high In price as their re-
puted medicinal virtues.
First In the list of these sovereign
remedies Is the powder made from a
spotted ~rhinoceros horn. An ordinary
~rhinoceros horn Is said to be less efH-
cacious. The spotted variety Is q won
derful cure for Intestinal disorders.
These horns come chiefly ftom some Of
the rivers of the Philippines, and bring
as much as $50 each in the Singapore
Chinese drug market. In the old jap
anese pharmacopoeia they were cata-
logued as unicorn horn-at least that
that is what the uniforms horn is sup
posed to have been.
Next to spotted ~rhinoceros come the
three tiger remedies-the eyeball. the
liver and the blood. AS may be mag
iued, tiger eyeball can only be pre-
scribed for the exceedingly wealthy,
but 1t Is firmly believed there Is 10
disease it will not cure. The tiger liv-
er, when dried and reduced to a pow
der, is worth its weight in gold all over
the Orient. Tiger blood. when evapor-
ated to a sediment at a temperature of
10 degrees, and taken in the form of
4 powder, is believed by all Asiatlcs to
be the best tonic known, and will make
n fine warrior out of the most chicken
hearted.
In desperate cases, when neither
spotted rhinocerous horn nor tiger eye
ball affords relief, the Chinese physi-
clans prescribe what is known as a
majoon. This is a compound of ground
pearls and other precious stone, which.
it is held, nothing but the malign infiu-
ence of some powerful devil a over
come. A majoon, of course, is a high
priced medicine, but it has fallen u
good deal in the popular estimation,
because the Chinese doctors are sus-
pected of taking advantage of the pa
tents critical state and of craftily SUBJ
shutting a fraudulent powder of glass
and mother of pearl. In this way. It's
said, they pocket a handsome differ
ence, %attributing the death Of the pa
tent to a devil even more powerful
than the majoon.
Next in price and virtue to the rene
dies mentioned are the various oils and
fats obtained from serpents. The
more deadly the serpent the more po-
tent apparently are it's medicinal quail
ties. The fat from the tail Of a cobra,
for example, applied externally, is
highly priced in Eastern Asia as a cure
for chronic rheumatism.
A III armed or one legged Chinaman
is seldom seen. The reason for this is
that all Orientals have a profound OBJ
lection to surgical operations. Indeed,
they prefer to de rather than lose a
member. because they believe that as
they came into the world with two
arms, two legs. etc. they must of ne
c~essity so out of it with the same num-
Der. Otherwise something horribly un-
lucky might happen. They might. for
instance, be sent to hunt for the miss
ing arm or leg and spend half their flu
turity in finding it. One Of, the great
est difficulties the new school of medi-
cine in Japan has had to overcome is to
induce the people to submit TO surgical
opcrations.-New York Sun.