Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1913-06-21
LIKE BIRD TALK
English Sounds That Way to
Miss Ll-Bi-Cu.
Chinese Woman Physician Speaks u
FIuentIy Herself Now, but the
First Impression RemaIns--su-
perstItion In Healing hft.

DO you know what your English lam
guage sounds like to me7"asked Miss
Lu-BtCu, a Chinese physian who is
in America to take postgraduate
course at Johns Hopkins university.
"1t sounds like bird talk.
b The missionaries used to laugh at
me when told them that, but It Is
literally true; and even after learned
the language and have been speaking IL
for years English still reminds me Of
the mysterious and muscial chirping
and chattering Of the birds The first
time heard missionaries talking their
language / asked, DO they talk the
birds language? And when | told
them, Now you know what the birds
say they thought it great joke l
think English is beautiful, though diff
cult to learn; but no matter how much
Of it I know cannot get away from
my first impression"
Miss Ii took up the study of English
when she was sixteen years old and
spent four years studying the language
and the branches allied with 1t and
necessary to a liberal education before
she took up the study of medicine at
the Women's Medical college in Phila-
delphia. She spent four more years in
the medical school, and in 1905, at the
age of twenty-four, went back to China
to begin her work of healing the sick.
She expects to return to China in April,
after a year of postgraduate study In
Baltimore.
missionary gatherings in the interest
of a medical college in Peking with
which she has been connected. She
says this college is one of the most
promising agencies of progress In
China today, because through it Chi
nese young men land women may be
trained In modern medicine without
undergoing long preliminary train
ing In English.
There is enormous need for train
ed physicians in China" said DR.. Ii.
I'VE have today one western trained
physician to 100000 population. II
you had that proportion In the United
States 1t would mean that you had
In this entire nation just SO doctors.
In China, with it's population enor-
mously greater than yours, and with
it's multitude of medicine men whose
cure is worse than the disease,
the problem is enormously COM
plicated.
"The reigning emperor about 5000
years ago evinced great interest In
medical healing. He personally spent
much time experimenting with herbs,
classifying them according to their
supposed cures. All of these herbs
we're listed in a book which the en-
peror compiled, but he never organ
lied a school, and while the knowl-
edge he had gained by his expert
ments may have been valuable and
really efficient for healing, the lack
of a school to train the coming gener-
alton lost much of what the emperor
had gained. But he did leave his
book with the list of curative herbs.
II anyone wanted to become doctor.
all he did was to read through the
Book of Herbs and announce himself
a qualified medical healer.
"The worst kind of abuses grew out
of this. The disease was not as bad
as the cure in many cases. The medi-
cine men treated with tiger skins,
snake skins and leopard skins as we'll
as with herbs. They had a great
many superstitions about appeasing
the spirits.
Il remember the case Of young
boy who had commissions as a result.
apparently. or indigestion. The med
icine man who was called In took
needle, threaded it, pushed it into the
boys stomach as far as it could go.
left it there for three hours, and then
pulled It oet by the thread. There
the evil spirit was made to escape. as
he believed.
Another person had a severe cold,
perhaps It was the grip. The msdi-
cine man stuck needles into the nails
Of the patient In order that the cold
might escape. Little babies two and
three years old we're treated by prick
ing their gums with needles. SoIne-
times these raw places on the IN
fants' gums were rubbed with rock
1.-THE treatment for a baby who cries
too much is to burn the soft spot at
the front of the head. Hot needles
are sometimes used. OF course this
t~ootu,apf fc danOaroua oftan fatal