The Whole Was Covered
With Oiled Paper, Which Answers The Purpose Of Oiled Silk.
He then
compounded a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable, I have
not hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and to
avoid sake for a day or two!
I asked him what his fee was, and, after many bows and much
spluttering and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should
think half a yen too much, and when I presented him with a yen, and
told him with a good deal of profound bowing on my part that I was
exceedingly glad to obtain his services, his gratitude quite
abashed me by its immensity.
Dr. Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners, whose medical
knowledge has been handed down from father to son, and who holds
out, as probably most of his patients do, against European methods
and drugs. A strong prejudice against surgical operations,
specially amputations, exists throughout Japan. With regard to the
latter, people think that, as they came into the world complete, so
they are bound to go out of it, and in many places a surgeon would
hardly be able to buy at any price the privilege of cutting off an
arm.
Except from books these older men know nothing of the mechanism of
the human body, as dissection is unknown to native science. Dr.
Nosoki told me that he relies mainly on the application of the moxa
and on acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in
chronic maladies on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and
vegetable medicines, and certain kinds of food.
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