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July
18.--I have had so much pain and fever from stings and bites
that
last night I was glad to consult a Japanese doctor from
Shinjo.
Ito, who looks twice as big as usual when he has to do any
"grand"
interpreting, and always puts on silk hakama in honour of
it,
came in with a middle-aged man dressed entirely in silk, who
prostrated
himself three times on the ground, and then sat down on
his
heels. Ito in many words explained my calamities, and Dr.
Nosoki
then asked to see my "honourable hand," which he examined
carefully,
and then my "honourable foot." He felt my pulse and
looked
at my eyes with a magnifying glass, and with much sucking in
of
his breath--a sign of good breeding and politeness--informed me
that
I had much fever, which I knew before; then that I must rest,
which
I also knew; then he lighted his pipe and contemplated me.
Then
he felt my pulse and looked at my eyes again, then felt the
swelling
from the hornet bite, and said it was much inflamed, of
which
I was painfully aware, and then clapped his hands three
times.
At this signal a coolie appeared, carrying a handsome black
lacquer
chest with the same crest in gold upon it as Dr. Nosoki
wore
in white on his haori. This contained a medicine chest of
fine
gold lacquer, fitted up with shelves, drawers, bottles, etc.
He
compounded a lotion first, with which he bandaged my hand and
arm
rather skilfully, telling me to pour the lotion over the
bandage
at intervals till the pain abated. The whole was covered
with
oiled paper, which answers the purpose of oiled silk. He then
compounded
a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable, I have
not
hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and to
avoid
sake for a day or two!
I
asked him what his fee was, and, after many bows and much
spluttering
and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should
think
half a yen too much, and when I presented him with a yen, and
told
him with a good deal of profound bowing on my part that I was
exceedingly
glad to obtain his services, his gratitude quite
abashed
me by its immensity.
Dr.
Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners, whose medical
knowledge
has been handed down from father to son, and who holds
out,
as probably most of his patients do, against European methods
and
drugs. A strong prejudice against surgical operations,
specially
amputations, exists throughout Japan. With regard to the
latter,
people think that, as they came into the world complete, so
they
are bound to go out of it, and in many places a surgeon would
hardly
be able to buy at any price the privilege of cutting off an
arm.
Except
from books these older men know nothing of the mechanism of
the
human body, as dissection is unknown to native science. Dr.
Nosoki
told me that he relies mainly on the application of the moxa
and
on acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in
chronic
maladies on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and
vegetable
medicines, and certain kinds of food. The use of leeches
and
blisters is unknown to him, and he regards mineral drugs with
obvious
suspicion. He has heard of chloroform, but has never seen
it
used, and considers that in maternity it must necessarily be
fatal
either to mother or child. He asked me (and I have twice
before
been asked the same question) whether it is not by its use
that
we endeavour to keep down our redundant population! He has
great
faith in ginseng, and in rhinoceros horn, and in the powdered
liver
of some animal, which, from the description, I understood to
be
a tiger--all specifics of the Chinese school of medicines. Dr.
Nosoki
showed me a small box of "unicorn's" horn, which he said was
worth
more than its weight in gold! As my arm improved
coincidently
with the application of his lotion, I am bound to give
him
the credit of the cure.
I
invited him to dinner, and two tables were produced covered with
different
dishes, of which he ate heartily, showing most singular
dexterity
with his chopsticks in removing the flesh of small, bony
fish.
It is proper to show appreciation of a repast by noisy
gulpings,
and much gurgling and drawing in of the breath.
Etiquette
rigidly prescribes these performances, which are most
distressing
to a European, and my guest nearly upset my gravity by
them.
The
host and the kocho, or chief man of the village, paid me a
formal
visit in the evening, and Ito, en grande tenue, exerted
himself
immensely on the occasion. They were much surprised at my
not
smoking, and supposed me to be under a vow! They asked me many
questions
about our customs and Government, but frequently reverted
to
tobacco.
I.
L. B.
LETTER
XX
The
Effect of a Chicken--Poor Fare--Slow Travelling--Objects of
Interest--Kak'ke--The
Fatal Close--A Great Fire--Security of the
Kuras.
SHINGOJI,
July 21.
Very
early in the morning, after my long talk with the Kocho of
Kanayama,
Ito wakened me by saying, "You'll be able for a long
day's
journey to-day, as you had a chicken yesterday," and under
this
chicken's marvellous influence we got away at 6.45, only to
verify
the proverb, "The more haste the worse speed." Unsolicited
by
me the Kocho sent round the village to forbid the people from
assembling,
so I got away in peace with a pack-horse and one
runner.
It was a terrible road, with two severe mountain-passes to
cross,
and I not only had to walk nearly the whole way, but to help
the
man with the kuruma up some of the steepest places. Halting at
the
exquisitely situated village of Nosoki, we got one horse, and
walked
by a mountain road along the head-waters of the Omono to
Innai.
I wish I could convey to you any idea of the beauty and
wildness
of that mountain route, of the surprises on the way, of
views,
of the violent deluges of rain which turned rivulets into
torrents,
and of the hardships and difficulties of the day; the
scanty
fare of sun-dried rice dough and sour yellow rasps, and the
depth
of the mire through which we waded! We crossed the Shione
and
Sakatsu passes, and in twelve hours accomplished fifteen miles!
Everywhere
we were told that we should never get through the
country
by the way we are going.
The
women still wear trousers, but with a long garment tucked into
them
instead of a short one, and the men wear a cotton combination
of
breastplate and apron, either without anything else, or over
their
kimonos. The descent to Innai under an avenue of
cryptomeria,
and the village itself, shut in with the rushing
Omono,
are very beautiful.
The
yadoya at Innai was a remarkably cheerful one, but my room was
entirely
fusuma and shoji, and people were peeping in the whole
time.
It is not only a foreigner and his strange ways which
attract
attention in these remote districts, but, in my case, my
india-rubber
bath, air-pillow, and, above all, my white mosquito
net.
Their nets are all of a heavy green canvas, and they admire
mine
so much, that I can give no more acceptable present on leaving
than
a piece of it to twist in with the hair. There were six
engineers
in the next room who are surveying the passes which I had
crossed,
in order to see if they could be tunnelled, in which case
kurumas
might go all the way from Tokiyo to Kubota on the Sea of
Japan,
and, with a small additional outlay, carts also.
In
the two villages of Upper and Lower Innai there has been an
outbreak
of a malady much dreaded by the Japanese, called kak'ke,
which,
in the last seven months, has carried off 100 persons out of
a
population of about 1500, and the local doctors have been aided
by
two sent from the Medical School at Kubota. I don't know a
European
name for it; the Japanese name signifies an affection of
the
legs. Its first symptoms are a loss of strength in the legs,
"looseness
in the knees," cramps in the calves, swelling, and
numbness.
This, Dr. Anderson, who has studied kak'ke in more than
1100
cases in Tokiyo, calls the sub-acute form. The chronic is a
slow,
numbing, and wasting malady, which, if unchecked, results in
death
from paralysis and exhaustion in from six months to three
years.
The third, or acute form, Dr. Anderson describes thus.
After
remarking that the grave symptoms set in quite unexpectedly,
and
go on rapidly increasing, he says:- "The patient now can lie
down
no longer; he sits up in bed and tosses restlessly from one
position
to another, and, with wrinkled brow, staring and anxious
eyes,
dusky skin, blue, parted lips, dilated nostrils, throbbing
neck,
and labouring chest, presents a picture of the most terrible
distress
that the worst of diseases can inflict. There is no
intermission
even for a moment, and the physician, here almost
powerless,
can do little more than note the failing pulse and
falling
temperature, and wait for the moment when the brain,
paralysed
by the carbonised blood, shall become insensible, and
allow
the dying man to pass his last moments in merciful
unconsciousness."
{15}
The
next morning, after riding nine miles through a quagmire, under
grand
avenues of cryptomeria, and noticing with regret that the
telegraph
poles ceased, we reached Yusowa, a town of 7000 people,
in
which, had it not been for provoking delays, I should have slept
instead
of at Innai, and found that a fire a few hours previously
had
destroyed seventy houses, including the yadoya at which I
should
have lodged. We had to wait two hours for horses, as all
were
engaged in moving property and people. The ground where the
houses
had stood was absolutely bare of everything but fine black
ash,
among which the kuras stood blackened, and, in some instances,
slightly
cracked, but in all unharmed. Already skeletons of new
houses
were rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy
man,
but I should probably have lost everything but my money.
LETTER
XX--(Continued)
Lunch
in Public--A Grotesque Accident--Police Inquiries--Man or
Woman?--A
Melancholy Stare--A Vicious Horse--An Ill-favoured Town--
A
Disappointment--A Torii.
Yusowa
is a specially objectionable-looking place. I took my
lunch--a
wretched meal of a tasteless white curd made from beans,
with
some condensed milk added to it--in a yard, and the people
crowded
in hundreds to the gate, and those behind, being unable to
see
me, got ladders and climbed on the adjacent roofs, where they
remained
till one of the roofs gave way with a loud crash, and
precipitated
about fifty men, women, and children into the room
below,
which fortunately was vacant. Nobody screamed--a noteworthy
fact--and
the casualties were only a few bruises. Four policemen
then
appeared and demanded my passport, as if I were responsible
for
the accident, and failing, like all others, to read a
particular
word upon it, they asked me what I was travelling for,
and
on being told "to learn about the country," they asked if I was
making
a map! Having satisfied their curiosity they disappeared,
and
the crowd surged up again in fuller force. The Transport Agent
begged
them to go away, but they said they might never see such a
sight
again! One old peasant said he would go away if he were told
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