No. 20.

The governor's reply to the English supereintendent Elliot. Choo, the prefect of Kwangchow foo, and Han, commandant of the same department, jointly issue commands to the English superintendent, Elliot. On the 25th of December, 1839, we received from the governor of Kwangtung and Kwangse, Tang, the following official dispatch.

"I received, on the 23d of December, 1838, the subjoined address from the English superintendent, Elliot. [See above.]

"Upon the receipt hereof, the document being authenticated, I have given it due consideration.

"The said superintendent came, I find, to Canton, in obedience to commands received from his sovereign, to exercise control over the merchants and seamen, to repress the depraved, and to extirpate evils. Having such commands given to him, he must needs also have powers. It is very inexplicable, then, that these boats, having in violation of the laws enterred the river, he should now find it difficult to send them out again, owing to his not having the confidence of all.

"But, seeing that he has now addressed me as above, and that in his address he has plainly stated, that the government of the British nation will regard these evil practices with no feelings of leniency, but on the contrary with severity and continual anxiety'-seeing this, it is clear that he yet has a distinct understanding of his duty as a represser of the evil and protector of the good. Nor has he sought to excuse the difficulty he meets with, by pleading inability. It is not then befitting in me to adhere obstinately to the letter of the law, and so to isolate him from the object for which he has come hither. "The request is therefore granted; and the prefect and commandant of Kwangchow shall be directed, in the adoption of modified measures suited to the occasion, to give you sealed commands, so that you may have authority for proceeding in obedience thereto.

"The superintendent, aforesaid, must faithfully order away every one of the said boats, and must never permit them to return; should any dare perversely to disobey, or make sport of his commands, he is authorized instantly to represent the case, that proceedings may be thereon taken.

"I, the governor, having under my sway the whole land of Yuě, and having on occasion to make most vigorous exercise of power, it may well be conceived that these boats trouble me not one iota.

"As soon as these boats shall have sailed, the merchant-ships may at once have their trade reopened, as usual. There has been no intention to cause any protracted stoppage of it. And there is therefore no ground for anxiety upon that point.

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The prefect and commandant, having received this document, proceed to give commands, as above, &c.

Taoukwang 18th year, 11th month, 10th day. (Dec. 26th.) True translation J. ROBT. MORRISON. Chinese Secretary, &c., &c.

Note. January 1st 1839. The trade of the port, by command of the local government, was reopened this day.

The party who are opposed to the admission of opium have gained the entire ascendant in the imperial councils. Three princes of the imperial blood have been deprived of their honors, and otherwise punished, for bad practices. of which opium-smoking was the principal. Heu Naetse, for proposing its admission, is dismissed from the public service, after having first been degraded to the sixth rank. The representations of the several provincial governments on the subject have been laid before the cabinet, the general council, the imperial house, and the Board of Punishments, for final consideration.

THE

CHINESE REPOSITORY. REPOSITORY.

VOL. VII. JANUARY, 1839.- No. 9.

ART. I.

Medical missionary Society in China: remarks made at its first anuual meeting.

THE report of the committee of management having been read (see our last No. p. 419), G. T. LAY, esq., then rose to move its acceptance, and spoke in terms nearly as follows:

"It is not necessary that I should take up any time in insisting upon the value of medical and surgical aid every one who has felt disease himself, or witnessed it in a friend or relative, has had the conviction of their worth and importance brought home to him and made a part of his mental associations. The Chinese have a materia medica that is well supplied with drugs, they display great variety, neatness, and care in their pharmaceutical operations, we see them busied in dispensing prescriptions, while the size of the shop, its furniture, and every circumstance about it, combine to assure us, that every thing is done in conformity with a steady and comprehensive system. The manifestations of disease, and the various phases which it puts on, from its first beginning till it terminates in death or recovery, have in many cases been well marked and faithfully recorded by them. Their experience which resembles the Epic and τηρησις Satyrion, embraces many valuable observations, and their practical skill enables them to deal successfully with remittent fevers and other maladies, which, according to their classification, arise from cold or bad air, or from some disturbance of the healthy equilibrium. But where disease assumes a malignant character, where its treatment depends upon a proper knowledge of the situation and function

of

of the parts affected, or extirpation is called for, it is clear, that it is far beyond their reach, and must be left to take its own course, with the certainty that it could only be made worse by their interference. It is here that the man with the enlightened knowledge and the surgical adroitness of the west finds an appropriate field, and does for a Chinese what no native practitioner can do for him.

"But there are other advantages, besides the relief of human suffering, however great that may be, which are intimately connected with the objects of this Society, and deserve our most attentive consideration.

"In the first place, it teaches us what the Chinese really are. We have become accustomed to hear of their prejudices, their exclusive spirit, their repugnance to and distrust of foreigners. Now in this respect our hearsays and all our surmises are completely overset by what we may see any day at our hospitals. Crowds of Chinese of both sexes, afflicted with all kinds of disorders, soliciting aid in the attitude of respect and humility, and listening to advice and assurances, as if nothing but absolute truth could fall from the lips of the physician. To behold a female, unaccompanied perhaps by a single friend or relative, brought in and tied hand and foot to the operator's table, and there submit to a most painful operation, without uttering a sigh or a groan, teaches us, in terms that can neither be misunderstood nor prevaricated, that a Chinese, upon proper grounds, is able to exercise the most unbounded confidence in the wisdom and goodness of the stranger. We learn, what I rejoice to find proofs of from different quarters, that he has a most keen perception of what is good for him, and courage to embrace it, whenever it can be made apparent to him that he has a stock of good sense and good feeling upon which his social prosperity is based and so we arrive at a discovery which, whether we seek to make him wiser by our sciences, or better by our religion, opens to us prospects of the most encouraging and delightful character.

"In the second place, it makes the Chinese acquainted with the authentic nature of our principles, and the kindness of our feelings towards them a most necessary preliminary in the work of doing them good, whether it be in matters touching this world or that which is to come. There is nothing more obvious than that a Chinese entirely misunderstands our character and situation; he thinks we have no institutions for learning, are strangers to the softer refinements and courtesies of life, and recognise no moral distinctions, are unconscious of the intrinsic beauty of a virtuous action. When assured

that he labors under a mistake, he hears with incredulity in his looks; when he witnesses proofs of wisdom and goodness, he is filled with wonder and surprise. We find by experience, that he is not apt to forget either our good words or our good deeds, but if there were any oblivious tendency in this way, it would be corrected by the restoration of sight to the blind, the removal of excrescences that preyed upon the vitals of the sufferer, and so on; for he bears a testimony which he will convey to his grave, written with indelible characters upon his body, that China, with a swarming population, cannot produce a man, that can at once vie in skill and humanity with the stranger. Where could we find a better pledge, a better earnest to assure them, that our science is founded on truth, our religion full of benevolence? If we have patience to give these endeavors time to work, such a conviction, waxing stronger and stronger, is inevitable, -the collateral results, of unknown magnitude and importance.

"In the third place, we shall have opportunities of studying the mind of a Chinese, and of tracing all its essential characteristics. We shall find out wherein it differs from our own, what it has in common with ourselves; for a sick person, as by a sort of instinct, opens his heart as well as his case to his physician. In the west, we often see this exemplified, but not more frequently there than in China. All ranks, ages, and sexes, tell their story, and reply to questions, with child-like simplicity, and make good what philosophy would teach us, that to speak the truth is a quality naturally inherent in the will of man.— - Everything about their domestic history, ways of thinking, social feelings, nay the very penetralia of their hearts and dwellings, are brought under contemplation, and thus we may gather hints and reflections which will be hereafter of the highest value to us.

'In addition to these advantages, we may mention the influence that enterprises like the one before us are likely to exert upon medical science itself.

"(1) Maladies, in their nature and frequency, differ in different countries. A disorder which is transient and occurs only here and there in some places, may be studied in all its features again and again in others. The phenomena which the same disease exhibits in one place, it never assumes in another, a consideration that leads us to make a difference between such as are common to it in all places, and such as are not, and so to delineate with philosophic accuracy what its essential character consists in. If at the same time we attend to the climate, soil, water, and relative situation of the country,

with the diet and habits of the people, we give new and wider bearings to an important part of medical study—the existing causes of disease and, of consequence, the means by which they may be avoided. By this means we shall be able to complete our system of nosology, and to make out a uniform encyclopedia of diseases.

"(2.) If the existing causes of disease have a kind of geographic distribution, the appropriate remedies seem to have something very analogous to it, so that each country has its peculiar drug as well as its peculiar disorders, as if the same providence that sent the affliction sent also its cure with it. Each country has its pharmacy, remarkable for some drug not found elsewhere, and generally proves after investigation far more comprehensive than we were at first inclined to suppose. The Chinese and the Japanese have each their own, both of which abound with excellent and powerful medicines. Now by practicing among the natives, we are made acquainted with these remedies, their modes of application, efficacy, and so forward, by ways that are as good as actual experiment, without any of its risk. Hence we are enabled to enlarge our knowledge of remedies, and to enrich our pharmacopoeias with an account of substances hitherto unknown or untried.

"(3.) Every nation and tribe has what we may call its national therapeutics and nosology. It has some conceptions of disease peculiar to itself, some modes of treatment not observed elsewhere. In principle and extent they may be very humble, in detail united with error and mistake, but I think we should have to search a long time before we found one that would not afford us one fact for our information, or one hint to awaken our curiosity; These subjects would necessarily fall under the notice of an enlightened practitioner, who with patient kindness had given himself up to the purpose of doing good, which he would not fail to record and communicate to the world, for the benefit of science and humanity.

"I am so impressed with the importance of these considerations that I have determined to make the system of gratuitous relief for the sick in some sort universal. I may not succeed in my first attempts, but I will continue, while life and health last, to pursue my object till I have attained it. We have societies for giving the Bible, the gospel, useful knowledge, and so on, to the world, we will have also a society for giving the benefits of rational medicine to the world. Humanity shall be taught to flow in new channels, and to wear names and designations unused before. Science shall earn new honors, and gain fresh accessions to her strength. The motives that incite