The surgery and medicine are totally uninfluenced by European science,
and are of the most antiquated and barbaric description.
There was a
woman who had had a cancer removed, and the awful wound, which was
uncovered for my inspection, was dressed with musk, lard, and
ambergris, with a piece of oiled paper over all. There was also
exhibited to us a foot which had been pierced by a bamboo splinter.
Violent inflammation had extended up to the knee, and the wound, and
the swollen, blackened limb were being treated with musk and tiger's
fat. A man with gangrened feet, nearly dropping off, had them rolled up
in dark-colored paste, of which musk and oil were two ingredients. All
the wounds were deplorably dirty, and no process of cleaning them
exists in this system of surgery.
The Governor and Bishop were not allowed to go into the women's ward.
It looked very clean and comfortable, but a woman in the last
death-agony was unattended. They never bleed, or leech, or blister, or
apply any counter-irritants in cases of inflammation. They give
powdered rhinoceros' horns, sun-dried tiger's blood, powdered tiger's
liver, spiders' eyes, and many other queer things, and for a tonic and
febrifuge, where we should use quinine, they rely mainly on the ginseng
(Panax quinquefolia?) of which I saw so much in Japan. They judge much
by the pulse and tongue. The mortality in this hospital is very large,
not only from the nature of the treatment, but because Chinamen who
have no friends in Victoria go there when they are dying, in order to
secure that their bodies shall be sent to their relations at a
distance.
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