Life — June 26, 1884 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

hue JUNE 26ru, 1884. 1155 Broapway, New York. Published every Thursday, $5 a year in advance, postage free. Back numbers can be had by applying Vol. I., 20 cents per copy; Vol. II., at regular Single copies, 10 cents. to this office. rates, Rejected contributions will not be returned unless accompanied | by a stamped and directed envelope. OCTOR TWO LUNG, of this city, an eminent Chinese practitioner, and presumably a specialist in pulmonary complaints, is connubially in trouble. A graduate of the Royal Pig-Tail College, of Chow-chow, the literary centre of the pro- vince of Ki-yi, he is learned in the therapeutics of the Flowery Kingdom, and well worthy of the confidence and fees bestowed upon him, When a patient calls upon a graduate of the Chinese School of Medicine, he is rigorously examined. His tongue is scraped, his nostrils tickled, his ears blown into and his eyelids turned wrong side out. If any of these proceedings disturb the nerve centres, it is a sign that he is ill. The next point is the diagnosis. The method is very simple. The doctor is possessed of a species of roulette-wheel, on the circumference of which are painted the names of all the maladies to which flesh celestial is heir. This wheel is set spinning by the patient, and whichever disease is then indicated by the pointer, is the one for which he must be treated. This being done, the path is clear, The Chinese Materia Medica is simplicity itself. Under each disease stand the remedies, thus: «Liver CoMPLAINT (Choo-/ong-sing-tee). Remsdies—1, Dried lizard, boiled owl, pulverized rat-tail—each a tablespoonful six times a day. If any nausea ensues, give: 2. Powdered back teeth, cat fur, dried eel-skin and chicken feathers, one-half pound in one quart of tea, If this fails to relieve the nausea, repeat No. 1 at regular intervals until death.” It is here to be casually noted that liver complaint is regarded in Chinese circles as invariably fatal. Dr. Two Lung’s name inspired great confidence in his phthisi- cal patients, who deserted his rival, Dr. Wun Lung, immediately afcer his arrival. Among these was Mr. Wing Hock, a gentle- man of so great pulmonary destitution as not even to be worthy | Mr. Hock had tried all | the remedies, from dried finger-nails up, but had steadily got | of relation with the Lung family at all. thinner and thinner until even the most skillful of treatment failed to produce any effect. At this juncture he went to visit Dr. Two Lung. Byan unfortunate error he happened in while the Doctor was out, and saw instead Mrs. Two Lung, and as a result of his interview had a bullet inserted between his ribs in a locality calculated to do the coroner most good. Now whether this was a course advised by the Doctor himself in cases of such of his patients as would naturally resist milder forms of treatment, or whether it was merely a humane experiment designed by the lady hercelf, will never be known, but the fact remains that Mr. Wing Hock is now in a Melican hospital, while the Chinese population of our city is threatened with a renewed lease of life, owing to the fact that both Dr. Two Lung and his wife are in durance vile. Now a competent jury will ascertain if Mr. Hock's present condition is worse than it would have been had he undergone the doctor’s treatment, and thus make clear what has hitherto been a very knotty point in the practice of Chinese medicine. * * * FTER an engagement of only twenty-seven years, she mar- a ried another man and he, the faithful, just returned from the Wild West, blew out his poor brains. * * * ERTAIN gentlemen, whose names for the present are with- held, have fallen into the reprehensible practice of shooting themselves in Central Park, and then lying around until discov- ered. Scarcely a day passes but we hear of some offense of this kind. Others, with hardly greater sense of propriety, drown themselves in the Hudson, where a day or two later it is certain that they can mar the scenery. Discouitesy can never be made criminally penal, of course, but the public comfort now demands that a suitable building be erected, say in Madison Square, to be devoted exclusively to the wants of suicides, Razors, pistols, Paris green, ropes, chloral, vitriol, morphine—all these ways and means could be served by polite attendants for a nominal fee, and the suicide enabled to do his work neatly, and without jarring the nerves of the public. Pen, ink and paper might be kept for political suicides. The scheme has already attracted some of our philanthropic capitalists, and it is understood that plans have been already submitted. * * * OT that I feel at ail uneasy or-that sort of thing, but Jack and I would like to know if a first-class A 1 Boom can be insured.” Blaine. “cc * * R. COX is really doing good work in introducing a bill prohibiting the dumping of filth into New York harbor. | Passengers to Brooklyn and New Jersey will now be required to keep their newspapers at least till they get on dry land. * * * T the recent Vassar exercises it was shown that the Senior class was thoroughly grounded in the ‘ Ethics of Nihil- ism,” ‘ Imagination in Mathematics,” ‘ Correlation of Synthetic Ideas,” and “ Biological Metempsychosis.” The Sub-Freshgirl class on“ Architecture of the Modern Muffin,” “ Evolution of the Buckwheat Cake,” and ‘Chemical Constituents of Soup,” was found deficient. comicbooks.com