LETTER LXVIII.

From Lien Chi Altangi to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.

I FORMERLY acquainted thee, most grave Fum, with the excellence of the English in the art of healing. The Chinese boast their skill in pulses, the Siamese their botanical knowledge, but the English advertising physicians alone, of being the great restorers of health, the dispensers of youth, and the insurers of longevity. I can never enough admire the sagacity of this country for the encouragement given to the professors of this art: with what indulgence does she foster up those of her own growth, and kindly cherish those that come from abroad! Like a skilful gardener, she invites them from every foreign climate to herself. Here every great exotic strikes root as soon as imported, and feels the genial beam of favour; while the mighty metropolis, like one vast munificent dunghill, receives them indiscriminately to her breast, and supplies each with more than native nourishment.

In other countries, the physician pretends to cure disorders in the lump; the same doctor who combats the gout in the toe, shall pretend to prescribe for a pain in the head, and he who at one time cures a consumption, shall at another give drugs for a dropsy. How absurd and ridiculous! this is being a mere jack-of-all-trades. Is the animal machine less complicated than a brass pin? Not less than ten different hands are required to make a pin; and shall the body be set right by one single operator?

The English are sensible of the force of this reasoning;

they have, therefore, one doctor for the eyes, another for the toes; they have their sciatica doctors, and inoculating doctors; they have one doctor who is modestly content with securing them from bug-bites, and five hundred who prescribe for the bite of mad dogs.

The learned are not here retired, with vicious modesty, from public view; for every dead wall is covered with their names, their abilities, their amazing cures, and places of abode. Few patients can escape falling into their hands, unless blasted by lightning, or struck dead with some sudden disorder. It may sometimes happen, that a stranger who does not understand English, or a countryman who cannot read, dies, without ever hearing of the vivifying drops, or restorative electuary; but, for my part, before I was a week in town, I had learned to bid the whole catalogue of disorders defiance, and was perfectly acquainted with the names and the medicines of every great man, or great woman of them all.

But as nothing pleases curiosity more than anecdotes of the great, however minute or trifling, I must present you, inadequate as my abilities are to the subject, with some account of those personages who lead in this honourable profession.

The first upon the list of glory is Doctor Richard Rock, F. U. N. This great man, short of stature, is fat, and waddles as he walks. He always wears a white threetailed wig, nicely combed, and frizzed upon each cheek; sometimes he carries a cane, but a hat never. It is indeed very remarkable, that this extraordinary personage should never wear a hat, but so it is, he never wears a hat. He is usually drawn at the top of his own bills, sitting in his arm-chair, holding a little bottle between his finger and thumb, and surrounded with rotten teeth, nippers, pills,

packets, and gallipots. No man can promise fairer nor better than he; for, as he observes, «Be your disorder never so far gone, be under no uneasiness, make yourself quite easy; I can cure you.»

The next in fame, though by some reckoned of equal pretensions, is Doctor Timothy Franks, F. O. G. H., living in a place called the Old Bailey. As Rock is remarkably squab, his great rival Franks is as remarkably tall. He was born in the year of the Christian era, 1692, and is, while I now write, exactly sixty-eight years, three months, and four days old. Age, however, has no way impaired his usual health and vivacity: I am told, he generally walks with his breast open. This gentleman, who is of a mixed reputation, is particularly remarkable for a becoming assurance, which carries him gently through life; for, except Doctor Rock, none are more blessed with the advantages of face than Doctor Franks.

And yet the great have their foibles as well as the little. I am almost ashamed to mention it: let the foibles of the great rest in peace. Yet I must impart the whole to my friend. These two great men are actually now at variance: yes, my dear Fum Hoam, by the head of our grandfather, they are now at variance like mere men, mere common mortals. The champion Rock advises the world to beware of bog-trotting quacks, while Franks retorts the wit and the sarcasm (for they have both a world of wit) by fixing on his rival the odious appellation of Dumplin Dick. He calls the serious Doctor Rock, Dumplin Dick! Head of Confucius, what profanation! Dumplin Dick! What a pity, ye powers, that the learned, who were born mutually to assist in enlightening the world, should thus differ among themselves, and make even the profession ridiculous! Sure the world is wide enough, at least, for two great personages

to figure in men of science should leave controversy to the little world below them; and then we might see Rock and Franks walking together hand in hand, smiling onward to immortality.

Next to these is Doctor Walker, preparator of his own medicines. This gentleman is remarkable for an aversion to quacks; frequently cautioning the public to be careful into what hands they commit their safety: by which he would insinuate, that if they do not employ him alone, they must be undone. His public spirit is equal to his success. Not for himself, but his country, is the gallipot prepared, and the drops sealed up with proper directions, for any part of the town or country. All this is for his country's good; so that he is now grown old in the practice of physic and virtue; and, to use his own elegance of expression, «There is not such another medicine as his in the world again. »

This, my friend, is a formidable triumvirate; and yet, formidable as they are, I am resolved to defend the honour of Chinese physic against them all. I have made a vow to summon Doctor Rock to a solemn disputation in all the mysteries of the profession, before the face of every philomath, student in astrology, and member of the learned societies. I adhere to, and venerate the doctrines of old Wang-shu-ho. In the very teeth of opposition I will maintain, «That the heart is the son of the liver, which has the kidneys for its mother, and the stomach for its wife.» 1 I have, therefore, drawn up a disputation challenge, which is to be sent speedily, to this effect:

«

<< I, Lien Chi Altangi, D. N. R. . native of Honan in China, to Richard Rock, F. U. N. native of Garbage-alley,

'See Du Halde, Vol. II. fol. p. 185.

in Wapping, defiance. Though, sir, I am perfectly sensible of your importance, though no stranger to your studies in the path of nature, yet there may be many things in the art of physic with which you are yet unacquainted. I know full well a doctor thou art, great Rock, and so am I. Wherefore, I challenge, and do hereby invite you to a trial of learning upon hard problems, and knotty physical points. In this debate we will calmly investigate the whole theory and practice of medicine, botany, and chemistry; and I invite all the philomaths, with many of the lecturers in medicine, to be present at the dispute; which, I hope, will be carried on with due decorum, with proper gravity, and as befits men of erudition and science, among each other. But before we meet face to face, I would thus publicly, and in the face of the whole world, desire you to answer me one question; I ask it with the same earnestness with which you have often solicited the public; answer me, I say, at once, without having recourse to your physical dictionary, which of those three disorders, incident to the human body, is the most fatal, the syncope, parenthesis, or apoplexy? I beg your reply may be as public as this my demand.' I am, as hereafter may be, your admirer, or your rival. Adieu.

1

The day after this was published the editor received an answer, in which the Doctor seems to be of opinion, that the apoplexy `is most fatal.