Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

All these are sources to which the man who aspires to be a doctor can apply, and by a careful study of which he may get such a knowledge of the Chinese herbarium that he will be able to deal with simple and elementary cases with some degree of success. He must also have unbounded cheek, a fluent tongue, and a natural eloquence that will win its way to men’s hearts and fill them with a confidence in his skill that they will never think of questioning his ability to deal with their particular ailments, no matter how difficult or complicated they may be. Of these three elements nearly every Chinaman has an abundant supply, so as a doctor he starts business with a stock-in-trade that are most valuable assets in dealing with the troubles of his countrymen.

But my business now is not with the regular practitioner, but with that medical species that is popularly known as the strolling doctor. And now let me give a description of a typical specimen of this Bohemian representative of the medical faculty in this land. In nine cases out of ten he is a degenerated member of the literary class. He is a man of good ability and well versed in the classical writings of China. He has always been wanting, however, in character, and consequently managers of schools became chary of engaging him as a teacher in any of them. His roving and unsteady habits really disqualified him for the long hours demanded of him in Chinese school life. He would teach a few days and gain the approbation of the parents by the scholarly way in which he would read and explain the profound statements of Confucius and Mencius, and then, to the great delight of the lads, he would wander away, impelled by the vagrant instinct that was in his very blood, and not appear in the school-room again for perhaps several weeks.

To add to his disqualifications he became an opium smoker. He was not induced to do this by a purely evil spirit, but rather because life was dreary and unsatisfactory, and he hoped in the solace and blandishments of that dangerous drug the monotony of life would be broken by an occasional glimpse into the realms of Elysium. The parents became still more opposed to the idea of sending their boys to a school that had him as their teacher, and so he found himself without employment and without any means of satisfying the craving that came upon him morning and evening, and which refused to be banished until the fumes of the opium had filled his brain with visions and dreams of such bewildering beauty that the pains and sorrows of earth seemed to have vanished, and he was in a realm where mortal feet had never trodden and sighing and tears were utterly unknown.

As he had no resources of his own to fall back upon and the doors of every school-house were shut upon him, the only means of making a livelihood now was to turn travelling doctor. This was a very simple proceeding, as it required but very little capital, for his whole stock-in-trade could be laid in for a few shillings. Besides a scanty supply of herbs, second-hand teeth, etc., he had to provide himself with a banner on which was inscribed the diseases he was able to cure, and the wide renown he had achieved wherever he went for the marvellous cases of recovery from dangerous sicknesses that had been affected by his patent medicines and by his skill in treating disease.

And now behold the man as he starts upon his travels, that will take him wherever the fortune of the day may lead him. His face is a sharp and a shrewd-looking one. His eyes are bright and piercing, but they are restless, and speak of a mind that is ill at ease and is continually discussing the question how the needs of life are to be met. One looking at him would not say that he was a bad man, but the opium pallor that rests upon his features would not incline one to put him down as a saint. In spite of his bad luck and his low fortunes, it is evident that a sense of humour is strong within him, and that the comical side of life still appeals to him; for when he smiles it is not an artificial lighting up of the countenance, but a veritable flash from a heart that still knows how to laugh in spite of the misfortunes he has brought upon himself.

The travelling doctor does not care much for the cities. There are too many of the regular practitioners there who are called in regularly by their patients; still one does occasionally see one of them now and again passing along the crowded thoroughfares, casting wistful glances at the open doors and the people that are lounging about them, in the hopes of picking up a case that may give him the means of providing himself with a meal and the money to pay his lodging-house bill during the night.

The places where they appear most in their element are in the country fairs, where great crowds of country bumpkins and farmers and unsophisticated people gather either for business or for pleasure. Here he has no rival and no competitor, for the regular doctor would as much disdain to set up his stand in any such places as a first-class doctor in London would wheel a barrow to some of the slums or great thoroughfares in it, and display his medicines to induce the public to patronize him.

Fortunately for the quack, the country abounds in just such gatherings. The very large villages have one every second or fifth day. The farmers in the district know this, and they come with their produce and their cattle to sell to those who are in need of such. Young fellows, too, wishing for some change from the monotony of country life, come to get some enjoyment, for all kinds of entertainments are prepared by itinerant caterers for the amusement of the public, and for a few hours they forget the ennui and mouldiness of their daily experience, and, having laughed at the funny things they have seen, they return with lightened hearts to their homes. Every day in the year, in a large district, there are scores of fairs that the people in the neighbourhood can attend, and it is to these that the gamblers, and puppet shows, and Punch and Judys, and conjurors resort, in the certainty that there will always be a crowd ready to be entertained, and with none of the highly critical notions that the townspeople are accustomed to indulge in. The strolling doctor selects a suitable place where he can best display the various articles that he hopes will attract those who may be in need of his services. Perhaps it is under the great boughs of a banyan-tree that cast their leafy shade between the people and the great red-hot sun, or it may be on the steps of a temple, where the grim and solemn-looking idol looks out complacently on the crowd that gathers to listen to the eloquence of the doctor.

Gathered closely around him are his medicines that he is going to prescribe for his coming patients. These consist of dried roots, and withered-looking stalks cut from bushes on the hillside, and various kinds of grasses, that seem fit only to be swept into the gutter as useless rubbish. There is one little mound that he builds up with deft and careful fingers, as though he relied much upon its component parts for his success to-day. It is a gruesome sight, for on looking at it carefully, one finds it to consist of a considerable number of teeth in a pretty good state of preservation that have been extracted from patients in days gone by, and that have still sufficient vitality in them to enable them to do service in other people’s mouths for some years to come.

Slowly the crowd gathers in the front of the doctor, who soon shows how profound is his knowledge of human nature by the way in which he captivates the attention of the rustics, who gaze at him with open mouths, and wonder what great scholar is this that has come with such a flow of eloquence, and such an amazing knowledge of medicine, to deliver men from diseases that the local doctors have not been able to cure.