Another medicament is also to be formed into pills and applied inside the ear.
The following remedy is particularly worthy of note:
“One roasts a bit of garlic, crushes it between the teeth, and afterward mixes it with chopped horseradish seeds, reducing the whole to a paste with human milk; one then forms it into pills; these are to be introduced into the nose on the side opposed to that where the pain is situated.”
Two other remedies, in powder, are to be snuffed up through the nose.
A powder to prevent the progress of caries is prescribed, with which the tooth should be rubbed every day, or it may be applied on the decayed spot.
Finally, two powders are also prescribed for whitening the teeth. One of these is compounded of seven ingredients, among which is musk; the other has only three substances in its composition: salt (gram 25), musk (gram 1.8), tsang-eul-tsee (gram 36).
A therapeutic method much in vogue among the Chinese is acupuncture, which is used in the treatment of the greatest variety of affections, including those of the dental system. The doctors of the Celestial Empire have the greatest faith in this operation, which they hold capable of removing obstacles to the free circulation of humors and vital spirits, thus reëstablishing that equilibrium of the organic forces which constitutes health, and the absence of which causes disease.
The Chinese doctors prefer to use gold or silver needles for puncturing; but they also frequently use needles of the best steel. These instruments vary very much in length, in thickness, and in form, and there are not less than nine distinct kinds of puncturing needles.
Every doctor who intends dedicating himself to the practice of this operation has to begin by the most accurate study of the elective points for puncturing according to the various affections; he should also know to what depth precisely to drive the needles in each case, in order to reach the site of the morbific principle and procure convenient exit for it; he ought to know equally well how long to leave the needle in the affected part, so as to obtain the best possible therapeutic results in each case.
The points of election for carrying out puncturing in various maladies are spread over the whole superficies of the body, and amount in number to 388. Each of these is known by a special name. Each site of election stands in determinate relations, as to distance, to the known anatomical points, and may, therefore, be easily and precisely found by appropriate measurement. The unity of length for these measurements is called tsun, and is divided into ten fen; its value varies, however, according to whether the said measurements be taken on the head, the trunk, or the extremities. For the head, the length of the tsun is calculated as equal to the distance existing between the inner and the outer angle of the eye; for the trunk, it is equivalent to the eighth part of the horizontal line between the two breast nipples; and for the extremities, it is equal to the length of the second phalanx of the middle finger, measured with the joints bent.