In the ancient medical lore of China, as in the medical lores of other lands, there are laudatory references to “All-heal” plants and plants reputed to be specific remedies for various diseases. Not a few of these medicinal plants have been found to be either quite useless or positively harmful, but some are included in modern pharmacopœias, after having been submitted to the closest investigations of physiological science.
The old herbalists, witch-doctors, and hereditary “curers”, who made some genuine discoveries that have since been elaborated, were certainly not scientists in the modern sense of the term. Their “cures” were a quaint mixture of magic and religion. They searched for those plants and substances that appeared, either by their shape or colour, to contain in more concentrated form than others the “essence of life”, the “soul substance” that restored health and promoted longevity. [[159]]
This “soul substance” was concentrated in body-odours and body-moistures. It was a something mixed in water which had colour, odour, and heat—a something derived from the Great Mother, who had herself sprung from water, as did the Egyptian Hathor and the Greek Aphrodite, or, if not directly from the Great Mother, from one or other of her offspring. The “soul substance” of the goddess was in vegetation; the sap of trees was identified with her blood—the “blood which is life”. Blood was one kind of body-moisture; other kinds were sweat, tears, saliva, &c. All these moistures had fertilizing properties. The Mother, as the sky-goddess, provided the world’s supply of fertilizing water. In China the supply was controlled by the dragon-gods, who caused the thunder and lightning that released the rain and flooded the rivers.
Winter is the Chinese dry season. It was believed that during this period the dragons were concealed and asleep. No growth was possible during winter because of the scarcity of water—the life-giving water that caused Nature to “renew her youth” in the spring season. When the dragons awoke and rose fighting and thundering, parched wastes were soaked and fertilized by rain. Then the old, decaying world renewed her youth and fresh vegetation appeared, because “soul substance” in the form of rain had entered the soil and furnished plants with “blood-sap”, and at the same time with vital energy, vital odours, and vital colours. Thus life, which had its origin in water, was sustained by the products of water and by the properties in water.
The plants that were supposed to store up most “soul substance” were those that grew in water, like the lotus, those that constantly absorbed moisture, like the “fungus of immortality”, or those that sprang up suddenly [[160]]during a thunder-storm, like the “Red Cloud herb”. The latter required a heavy deluge to bring it into existence. It was a special gift of the dragon-god—or an “avatar” of that deity—and had concentrated in it the essence of much rain, and, in addition, the essence of lightning—the “fire of heaven”, ejected by the rain-dragon. The lightning was the “dragon’s tongue”, and had therefore substance, moisture, and heat, as well as brilliance. To the early thinkers the life fluid was not only blood, but warm blood—blood pulsating with the “vital spark”, the “fire of life”. These men would have accepted in the literal sense the imagery of the modern Irish poet, who wrote:
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lightning lighten’d through my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen.
The “fire of life” might be locked up in vegetation, in stone, or in red earth, and be made manifest by its colour alone.
