On the early history of syphilis in China / by George Thin.

  • Thin, George.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the early history of syphilis in China / by George Thin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tliis is the most ancient notice of the disease. Tlicre is no epecitic literary name for it in the time of the Han. It is written of as the hateful disease. We know that this means venereal disease, because of the plirase that Stieh GhUn uses in expressing the debarring results of it. This phrase is composed of four words that literally translated mean, There is no entrance to the path of man, and their use in this sense has been stereotyped from ancient times. The uses of the plant, fei ee, also confirm this. In the great standard compilation of Chinese Materia Medica, compiled three hundred years ago, fei ee is stated to be the ancient name of cM isien, the uses of which are said to be antisyphditic and diuretic. This plant has been very long in use in China m venereal cases. The exact meaning of the Chinese written character as trans- mitted in ancient records is sometimes diflfcult to ascertain. _ There are certain characters applied to severe types of disease which were applied not so much to indicate the specific nature of the malady as the structure involved. The character lee, translated by Dr Morrison, in his Chinese Dictionary, as a virulent sore, a pestilence, noxious effluvia, is used by the old writers as one of the names of leprosy, and is also undoubtedly applied to syphilitic affections. Chang Kwoh Tseh, a writer of the earlier Han dynasty (2000 years ago), says the ' lee' disease, when severe, attacks (or penetrates to) the bladder, indicating evidently the genital organs as the parts affected. Other characteristics of the ' lee' disease that writers of ttie same date mention are destruction of the nose, and falling off of the hair. , . . , , Fung is another term appbed by writers of the same early date to a disease with the characteristic symptoms of constitutioiial syphilis, although it is also commonly used for leprosy._ L»r Morrison gives as its meanings a disease of the head ; a kind ot leprosy : applied to thirty-six forms of disease ; it includes msanity, and certain forms of the venereal disease. The hU and sea classic, whose antiquity is as far back as Chinese authentic history says, On the Kit tuna hill there grows the yung tsao plant. _ its leaves resemble willow-leaves. Its root is like an egg. Eatmg it cures the^n^ disease. The yung tsao is the modern tu fu i^^h j^'f^ has had long a repute for constitutional syphihs It stated m the compilation on materia medica above referred to that it cuies chancres otherwise incurable. There is no record of its ever havmg been used in the treatment of leprosy. -n^.n^l+m-v Notes Soo Tun^-po, in a book entitled, Collection of Desultoiy JNotes, A.D IO0S,/elates that in the tenth month of the --th year of he Emperor Yuan-Fung, he had a friend who was seized with the >TdSease. He sfys, Life and death fought togetiier T^ pain was worse than knives, saws, or cangue. What gi^^^^ brought this on him ? It was fi-om too great a likmg for wme and ' Smilax pseudo-china (Linn, Thb.)