Kung-Fu, or Tauist Medical Gymnastics - John Dudgeon - E-Book

Kung-Fu, or Tauist Medical Gymnastics E-Book

John Dudgeon

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Beschreibung

Fully illustrated. This is an extremely rare 19th century treatise on Chinese medicine, particularly the practices of the Kung Fu school. Although best known for a fighting style, Kung Fu includes a whole range of medical practices based on late Taoist alchemy. Dudgeon describes the use of yoga-like postures, movements similar to Tai Chi, the use of healing sounds similar to mantras, as well as massage and other techniques. He gives specifics of compounds used to treat a wide range of ailments in conjunction with the other methods, describes Taoist deities and sages, and gives extensive background on Chinese medical theory. This text is an invaluable look at the esoteric medical practices of the Chinese prior to the 20th century.

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Table of Contents

 

Introduction

The Eight Ornamental Sections

The Five Animals

Kung-Fu For The Four Seasons

Medicinal Kung

Extra Curative Kung Without Prescriptions

The Dragon Series

The Tiger Series

Kneading

Books On Kung-Fu

Kneading

Method For Acquiring The Essences Of The Sun And Moon

The Eighteen Disciplinary Records

Divisions Under The External Method

Notes On Kung-Fu Regulating The Various Parts Of The Body

The Twelve Positions

The Nine Figures To Remove Disease And Lengthen Life

Description Of Diagrams

Physiology Of Kung-Fu

Diagrams Illustrating The Physiology Of Kung-Fu

Conclusion

 

KUNG-FU

OR

TAUIST MEDICAL GYMNASTICS

BY

JOHN DUDGEON

1895

Introduction

 

Movements for the development of the body and for the prevention and cure of disease were known and practised in the most ancient times in all countries. We find gymnastic exercises forming a part of the religion of the ancients. The great heroes of antiquity either instituted, restored, or took part in them. Poets made them the theme of their verses; and so, by immortalizing not only themselves but their victors whose fame they celebrated, they animated the Greek and Roman youth to tread in similar steps. Such exercises were then indispensable, the use of fire-arms being at that time unknown. The body required to be strengthened, and health to be confirmed and inured to fatigue. Contests were generally decided in close fight, by strength of body. Hence the origin of gymnasia, where the science of movement, as it were, was taught, and which were always dedicated to Apollo, the god of physicians. The Greeks owed much of their mental greatness to these exercises. They formed one of the three great parts into which all education was divided, and this branch was the more important in that it did not cease at a certain period but was continued through life. The Greek effort in education seems to have been directed to the attainment of a sound mind in a sound body, and it was on this account that their physicians and philosophers placed well-regulated exercises as of first importance. We know that the officers of these institutions were recognised as physicians. Exercises of all kinds, such as walking, dry-rubbing or friction, wrestling, etc., were a few of the common aids of physic, as they were termed by Asclepiades, who did so much to bring them into repute. The term athletae might most appropriately be applied to the Chinese Tauist priests, the Greek word athlos, from which it is derived, being similar in meaning to kung fu. In other respects, however, they resemble more closely the Agonistae, who followed gymnastics solely with the view of improving their health and strength; and who, although they sometimes contended in the public games, did not devote their whole lives, like the Athletae, to preparing for these contests.

Gymnastics became a part of medicine shortly before the time of the "Father of Medicine;" and, according to Plato, as a means of counteracting the bad effects of increasing luxury and indulgence. It soon passed into a complete system, as already indicated. The gymnasia were often connected with the temple services in Greece where chronic ailments, through bodily exercises, baths, and ointments, could be cured. Æsculapius came to be considered the inventor of bodily exercises. Plato styles two of these Greek gymnasts, who cured disease, the inventors of medical gymnastics, Iccus of Tarentum and Herodicus of Selymbra. The latter in particular made use of them for medical purposes, which is the reason he is considered to have been the first inventor of this art. Plato relates that the latter was himself ill, and sought what gymnastic exercises might conduce to his recovery. He gained his object, after which he recommended the same method to others. Before his time, dietetics was the chief part of medicine. It was he who advised his patients to undertake the journey from Athens to Megara, a distance of 180 stadia, equal to 6 German miles, and back. Hippocrates, who was one of his pupils and superintended the exercises in his palaestra, tells us that Herodicus cured fevers by walking and wrestling, and that. many found the dry fomentations did them harm. In consumption, he advised the patients to suck women's milk from the breasts, a practice found existing in China at the present day among the old and debilitated. Galen mentions Premigenes, who was great in the peripatetic theory and wrote on gymnastics.

Other ancient nations besides Greece and Rome seem to have been early convinced of the importance of a knowledge of the means of preserving health. Among the Hindu legislators, we find laws enacted with this object; and, with the view of enforcing them and making them obligatory, we see them joined on to religion, just as in China we find similar precepts extensively pervading their sacred books. The Chinese, like the Hindus, have quite a large number of works on the means of retaining health. These have reference to climate, seasons, time of the day, food, bathing, anointing, clothing, housing, sleep, etc. Exercise receives always a high place in all such works; for it increases strength, prolongs life, prevents and cures disease by equalising the humours, prevents fatness, and renews and increases the power of resistance. In the Book of Rites (1,000 B.C.), we find archery and horsemanship laid down in the curriculum of study to be pursued at the National University. At the present day in China, besides the exercises involved in Kung-fu, the various exercises that prevail in Europe are practised publicly and privately by all classes, especially by the Mantchus, and to a much larger extent than among ourselves. Our present mode of warfare has done much to put an end to gymnastics as a part of education and a means conducive to robust health. The ancients may have esteemed them too highly, just as the moderns neglect them too much. True philosophy points to the golden mean as the place where truth is to be found. There are evils front inactivity as well as evils from excessive exercise; but gymnastics, when practised under proper control, must be invaluable in ensuring good health, a clear intellect, and in curing many complaints. Preventive medicine is coming every year more and more to the front, and gaining more attention and importance. The present age seems to be more alive to the importance of gymnastics than any preceding age of modern times. We find them introduced by enlightened teachers into many of our schools and warmly advocated by many medical men. Treatises on this subject are published yearly. One author considers hygiene to be the most useful sphere of the physician, and he believes that the subordinate value of therapeutics may be proved by statistics. Another writer, also a German, speaks of gymnastics as the principal agent for the rejuvenescence of body and mind.

But it is necessary to trace the rise of this subject in China somewhat more particularly.

The first mention in Chinese history of a system of movements, proper to maintain health and cure disease, dates back to pre-historic times, the time of the Great Yü, when the country was inundated, and the atmosphere was nearly always wet and unhealthy, and disease overflowed, so to speak, the earth. The Emperor ordered his subjects each day to take military exercise. The movements, which they were thus obliged to make, contributed not a little to the cure of those who were languishing, and to maintain the health of those who were well.

Premare refers to the same tradition, where he says in his researches of the time anterior to the Shu Ching:—In the time of Yü, the waters did not flow away, the rivers did not follow their ordinary channels, which developed a number of maladies. The Emperor instituted the dances named Ta Wu (#), the Great Dances. The native author, who reports this tradition, adds that the life of man depends upon the union of heaven and earth. The subtle material circulates in the body; and, if the body is not kept in movement, the humours do not flow, the matter collects, and from such obstruction disease originates. The great philosophers explained in a similar way the cause for the most part of maladies. But that which is specially remarkable in the Chinese tradition is that moisture and stagnant water are considered the source of the endemic and epidemic maladies, and that an efficient means to prevent them consists in the regular exercise of the body or in the circling dances. These movements tend in effect to produce a centrifugal result, from the centre to the circumference, very suitable to restore the functions of the skin, and to give tone and vigour to the whole economy. These dances form part of the institutions of the Empire.

We read also in the Shu Ching that the Emperor Yü ordered the dances to be executed with shields and banners. These two sorts of dances were the first sanctioned in the Li Chi, or ritual of civil and religious ceremonies. Great importance was attached to the regular bodily exercises. Like as in Greece, to sing and dance well constituted a good education. Even to the present day, the people take to exercises, in order to give themselves bodily strength and as much suppleness as possible; as, for example, the exercises of the bow and arrow, throwing and catching a heavy stone with a hole cut in it with which to provide a handle, heavy bags of gravel, the bar with the two circular heavy stones at the ends of it, the various feats of jugglery, etc. This taste for bodily exercise is one of the fundamental maxims which have not ceased to be considered as the base of all progress and all moral development, the improvement of one's self. Pauthier, in his Chine Moderne, mentions a large number of famous dances of antiquity.

The founder of the Shang dynasty (1766 B.C.) had engravers in the bath-tubs—"Renew thyself each day completely; make it anew, still anew, and always anew (#).

From the earliest times there were public institutions where were taught the six liberal arts (music, arithmetic, writing, religious and civil ceremonies with their dances, fencing, and charioteering). We read in the life of Confucius that he applied himself to perfect himself in all these exercises. Regular and rhythmic movements were had recourse to, to develop the physical force, skill to maintain the health and to combat certain diseases.

After the period of movement for the cure of disease comes the period of healing by the virtues of plants, .according to Chinese tradition. Although Fu-hsi had begun thus to cure maladies, the art is particularly ascribed to Shên Nung (about 3218 B.C.). He distinguished all the plants, and determined their different properties. The first Great Herbal is ascribed to him.

The term Kung-fu (#) means work-man, the man who works with art, to exercise one's self bodily, the art of the exercise of the body applied in the prevention or treatment of disease, the singular postures in which certain Tauists hold themselves. The expression Kung-fu (#) is also used, meaning work done. The term Kung-fu, labour or work, is identical in character and meaning with the word Congou, applied in the South to a certain kind of tea. In China it is applied medically to the same subjects as are expressed by the German Heil Gymnastik, or Curative Gymnastics, and the French Kinesiologie, or Science of Movement. Among the movements which are embraced within the domain of this method are massage, friction, pressure, percussion, vibration, and many other passive movements, of which the application made with intelligence produces essential hygienic and curative results. These different movements have been in use in China since the most ancient times They are employed to dissipate the rigidity of the muscles occasioned by fatigue, spasmodic contraction, rheumatic pains, the effects of dislocations and fractures, and in many cases of sanguiferous plethora in place of bleeding. These practices have to-day passed into the habits of the people, and those who are in charge of them are usually the barbers, as they were practised in Europe in the middle ages, who frequent the streets advertising the people of their presence by striking a kind of tuning-like-fork called hwantow. Those usually who practice these movements are the barbers who have shops, and the various exercises are generally gone through in the evenings. In the sequel of this Paper, we hope to describe the methods pursued by them. There is also a class of rubbers, who go to private houses. or who undertake to teach the art. Here we have certainly a procedure allied to medical gymnastics, to which the Chinese attribute therapeutic value. Kung-fu embraces, as already remarked, massage (a word not found by-the-bye in Webster's Dictionary, from the Greek massein, to rub, or Arabic mass, to press softly), and shampooing (a Hindu word meaning to knead), a practice still in vogue in China and highly esteemed. Massage consists in such operations as kneading, thumping, chafing, rubbing, pressing, pinching, etc. The-barbers, as a part of their duty after shaving the pate and face or plaiting the queue, treat their customers to kneading the scalp of the head, eye-brows, spine, calves of the legs, etc. These operations are practised both by way of preventing and curing disease; but more generally, as in part in Western countries, for the comfort and sense of bracing which it confers. The practice is now largely had recourse to in the West, and with marked benefit in cases of deficiency of nerve force,—neurasthenia, paralysis, hysteria, etc. The various methods of manipulation comprised under the term massage include effleurage, pétrissage, friction, and tapotement. All these movements are centripetal, and done with the dry hand. The effect produced by such manipulations is the promotion of the flow of lymph, otherwise designated humours by the older writers, and blood, and the stimulation of the muscles of the skin and the skin reflexes.

A medical man, who was lately asked if he used massage much in his practice, replied—"Oh yes, a great deal; my butler does it." After that, one should not have been surprised to hear that the electrical treatment was conducted by his footman, and that the kitchen maid undertook the obstetric cases. Mere rubbing or shampooing is no more massage than a daub of paint is a work of art. It is not only a vicarious way of giving exercise to patients who cannot take it themselves, but it is a valuable curative agent. Lady Manners, in the Nineteenth Century, says—"The Chinese are supposed to have learnt the use of gymnastic exercises from the Indians, and the subject mentioned in the most ancient of their books is called Cong-fou, or Science of Living." The late Dr. Macgowan gives the term for Kung-fu (#) as Kang (#), the Great Bear, and fu (#), a charm.

The Tauists, the priests of the religion or system of rationalism of Lau-tse (500 B.C.), have always been the chief practitioners of this form of Medical Gymnastics. These Bonzes, as they are called by the French, a term corrupted from the Japanese and first applied by the Portuguese to a Japanese priest, were the early alchemists of the world, and have for centuries been in search of the philosopher's stone. In cinnabar they supposed they had found the elixir vitæ. Alchemy was pursued in China by these priests of Tao long previous to its being known in Europe. For two centuries prior and for four or more subsequent to our era, the transmutation of the base metals into gold and the composition of an elixir .of immortality were questions ardently studied by the Tauists. The Arabs, in their early intercourse with China, thus borrowed it, and they were the means of its diffusion in the West. Kung-fu owes its origin to these same investigators, and was adopted at a very early period, by which to ward off and cure disease and for strengthening the body and prolonging life, in which it has been declared a far-reaching and efficacious system. My friend, the late Mr. Wylie, in his excellent Notes on Chinese Literature, remarks regarding Tauism that it has "changed its aspects with almost every age. Commencing with the profound speculations of contemplative recluses, on some of the most abstruse questions, of theology and philosophy, other subjects in the course of time were super-added which at first appear to have. little or no connexion with the doctrine of Tau. Among these the pursuit of immortality, the conquest of the passions, the search after the philosopher's stone, the use of amulets, the observance of fasts and sacrifices, together with rituals and charms, and the indefinite multiplication of objects of worship, have now become an integral part of modern Tauism."

[Note.—The reader, who may wish to consult this curious subject along with the Medical Divinities and Divinities worshipped in Medical Temples in China, will find a series of Papers by the present writer—On Chinese Arts of Healing, in the Chinese Recorder, Vols. 2 and 3].

Besides a system of gymnastics and charms in Chinese Medicine, there are other systems, one of which deserves a passing notice. Numerous works exist on all such subjects. There is one on the Art of procuring Health and Long Life, without the aid of physicians ands by means of regimen and general hygienic measures. Such things are inculcated as the regulation of the heart and its affections; and rules are laid down with regard to dietetics, business, and rest, containing many wise, useful, and quaint precepts, which, if attended to, would certainly conduce to health and longevity, but which, being persistently neglected, the constitution is ruined and loaded with infirmities, life is shortened, and the body is sorely burdened with disease. [Note.—The reader will find one such work translated in Du Halde].

It is the object of Kung-fu to make its votaries almost immortal; at least, if immortality be not gained, it is claimed for it that it tends greatly to lengthen the span of life, to increase the body's power of resistance to disease, to make life happier, and to make the muscles and bones insensible to fatigue and the severest injury, accidents, fire, etc. The benefit, too, the soul derives from such exercises and the merit accruing to the individual are not to be lightly esteemed. I have seen these priests subject themselves to great hardship and severe trials, without producing any impression upon them.

Having briefly sketched the practice of the art in ancient times both in the Orient and Occident, a few remarks on its practice in modern times are necessary to complete our historical retrospect.

In 1569, Mercurialis at Venice published his treatise De arte Gymnastica, in which he recorded the most important exercises used by the Greeks and Romans, and which has proved a perfect mine for subsequent writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who derived their knowledge of this subject largely from this source. In 174, according to M. Dally, and 1728, according to Dr. Roth, appeared in English a work by Francis Fuller on Gymnastic Medicine, every man his own physician, treating of the power of exercise in its relations to the animal economy, and its great necessity for the cure of various maladies, such as consumption, dropsy, hypochondria, itch, and other skin eruptions. This book made a sensation at the time, and it passed through several editions, and was translated into several languages. In 1748, there were published at Helmstadt two works in Latin, entitled Dissertatio de arte gymnastica nova by Boerner, and De Gymnasticæ medicæ veteris inventoribus by Gerike. The medical world was too much pre-occupied with pharmaceutical and chemical speculations to pay attention to the Gymnastics of the Greeks, and still less to those of the Tauists, those Priests of Supreme Reason. Pére Amiot, one of the Roman Catholic missionaries at Peking, drew attention to the subject of Kung-fu, or, as he spells it, Cong-Fou, by the publication of his Notice du Cong-Fou in 1779, in Les Mémoires sur les Chinois, of which more anon. In 1781 appeared Tissot's work La Gymnastique Medicale. In 1821, another Frenchman, Londe, published a treatise on the same subject, or exercise applied to the organs of man according to physiological, hygienic, and therapeutic laws. These works merit study at the present day for the high estimation of the power of regular and methodical movement on the living mechanism which they indicate. The most important works for rational gymnastics have been undertaken on the mechanism of locomotion. In 1794 an English work appeared, by John Pugh, the anatomist, entitled A Treatise on the Science of Muscular Action, showing its utility in restoring the power of the limbs. A work by Dr. Barclay, called The Muscular Motions of the Human Body, published in Edinburgh in 1808, was one of the most remarkable, having for its object the anatomical study of each organ wall relation to movement; and another on The Power of Compression and Percussion in the cure of Rheumatism, Gout, Debility of the Extremities, and in promoting Health and Longevity, by Dr. Balfour, of Edinburgh, in 1819. Various works in French appeared for the cure of deformities of the spinal column and osseous system generally, and chorea by means of pressure, percussion, friction, massage, position, attitudes, movements (active and passive), which constitute the science and art of medical gymnastics, the therapeutics of antiquity, which has had such prodigious success, principally in the deviations and spasmodic and chronic maladies against which modern therapeutics has generally recognised its powerlessness. In 1830 Dr. Koch's Gymnastics in relation to Dietetics and Psychology was published. Numerous other works in French and other languages appeared, treating of friction, ligatures, compression, vibration, percussion, etc. Dr. Roth believes a great part of the results produced by the so-called water cure is owing to the importance of movements, in which the douche, compresses, friction, etc., have so great an influence as well by their dynamical as by their mechanical effects.

We have reserved, for the sequel of this retrospect, notice of the originator of what is now called the Swedish system of Gymnastics, Ling (born 1766, died 1839). His system is based on anatomical and physiological principles; and, in this respect, differs entirely from the Chinese, which can lay claim to no such foundation, and is therefore not calculated to produce all the curative results claimed for the Swedish system. His great principle was the oneness of the human organism and the harmony between mind and body, and between the various parts of the same body. The development and preservation of this harmony is the educational or prophylactic part of the system; the restoration of the disturbed harmony forms the subject of the medical part. His idea, in Dr. Roth's words, was that an harmonious organic development of the body and of its powers and capabilities by exercises, considered In relation to the organic and intellectual faculties, ought to constitute an essential part in the general education of a people. He looked upon anatomy and physiology as the basis of gymnastics essentially necessary. His intention was to make gymnastics not only a branch of education for healthy persons, but to demonstrate it to be a remedy for disease. The curative movements were first practised in Stockholm in 1813. His system is now largely extended through the various countries of Europe. He arranged the vital phenomena, which are subordinate as well to physiological as to physical laws, in three orders, known as the Dynamical, Chemical, and Mechanical agents. The union and harmony of these three, combined, constitute a perfect organism.

Under the Dynamical he places the manifestations of the moral and intellectual powers; under the Chemical, generation, nutrition, reproduction, sanguinification, secretion, etc; under the Mechanical, breathing, circulation, walking, etc. He carries out this analogy of these three fundamental agents of the vital powers in various directions, as, for example, telluric influences, such as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc., are embraced in the Dynamical; nutriment, medicine, poisons, etc., in the Chemical; and shock, pressure, etc., in the Mechanical. The organism itself is divided into the brain, heart, and lungs; arms and legs corresponding to the same three agents. The animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms permit of a similar analogy. Hitherto it has been principally by medicines, acting generally on the Chemical agent alone, that we have tried to preserve health and cure disease; the Dynamical and Mechanical agents have been either entirely neglected or unscientifically considered. In any discordant action of the organism, in other words, in indisposition and disease, which of the three agents must be principally acted upon, must be considered. As the chemical agent is as inseparable from the other two as these are from it, hence it must be impossible to effect a cure in all diseases solely by pure medicines which act principally on the chemical agent. Wherefore medical men frequently prescribe either exercise influencing the mechanical, or amusement, etc., acting by means of the dynamic agent. "It is as wrong," and we are now quoting from Dr. Roth, "to recommend a healthy person only to eat and drink, and not to move or amuse himself, as it is in diseases to act exclusively on one factor of the vital power." The great Sydenham, when dying, consoled those who complained of the loss of the great physician by saying—"I leave behind me three great and most important means, viz.,—air, water, and exercise, which will compensate for the loss of my person."

Ling's idea of the harmonious development of the organs of the body, being the essential base of the education of the young and of the people, is a Greek idea which is found in all the writings of the philosophers. Barclay of Edinburgh in 1808, as we have shown, professed the same idea in the treatise on the muscular motions of the body. St. Paul's words in his Epistles to the Corinthians (I, XII, 24) and to the Ephesians (IV, 16), considered solely from the physiological point of view, are still to-day the most perfect synthesis of the science. M. Dally thinks it would be doing a real wrong to Ling's reputation to have him posed as the inventor of it. His system resembles exactly that of the Kung-fu of the Tauists, and to M. Dally it appears less complex than that of the Tauists. The Chinese system, continues our author, is sanctioned by 5000 years of continued experience. For it is from Central Asia, and from the seat of the origin of mankind, that the Tauists have imported this doctrine into the Orient, and since this epoch have not ceased to make application of it. But it is also from Central Asia, and from the same source as that whence the Tauists have drawn them, that the ancestors of the Greeks imported into the Occident the same doctrine. What then, asks M. Dally, is the merit of Ling? As his body of doctrine does not differ from that of the Tauists, it must be admitted also that at the same time Ling had in his hands the Notice of Amiot or some other original Chinese treatise, produced it may be by other missionaries or by some persons attached to Embassies from Europe in China. (Lawrence Lange, by-the-bye, was a Swede, and the first Russian Consul at Peking in the second decade of the 18th century). The doctrine of Ling in its entirety, theoretical and practical, is only a sort of counter-drawn daguerreotype of the Kung-fu of the Tauists. It is the royal vase of Dresden, the splendid Chinese vase with its Chinese figures overlaid with European paint. This is, according to our historical studies, says Dally, the real merit of Ling. After all, whether the work of Ling is only an importation of the doctrine conserved in China in all its primitive originality and in its essential therapeutic character, or a simple renovation of Greek art more especially applied to the education of man, or a harmonious development of form and force applied to aesthetics and the military art, in a word, whatever be the sources whence Ling may have drawn the elements and the combinations of his system and its applications, it is none the less true that he is one of the men who have much aided to bring back gymnastics among us as a science and an art to the purer traditions of high antiquity.

My attention was first called to the Notice of P. Amiot, now nearly thirty years ago, by the following communication from a friend in Edinburgh:—"The Chinese have a mode of treating many diseases by various ways of breathing while the patients are placed in previously determined positions, which vary according to the nature of the disease. The treatment is called Cong-fu, and was practised by the followers of the Bonzes, Tao-sse, who prepared the patients by religious ceremonies for the treatment. The French Missionaries of Peking have published in their Mémoires concernant les Chinois, Paris, 1779, a chapter on this treatment under the name of Notice du Cong fu des Bonzes Tao-sse. Will you kindly furnish answers to the following?

1.—Detailed information on the positions and breathing movements.

2.—Whether the followers of the Bonzes, Tao-sse, still exist and practise the treatment by breathing movements.

3.—The titles of Chinese works on this subject. Some works with wood engravings have been published on the subject.

4.—Any other information regarding this mode of treatment."

This letter was perhaps dictated by Dr. Roth, with whom I have since kept up a friendly and constant correspondence, and supplied him with the various Chinese works containing illustrations on the subject. The result of my attention having been called to this treatment is the following article on Kung-fu, which was submitted to Dr. Roth, and by him recommended for publication. I was unwilling at the time to present to the medical profession or to the general public a subject so meagerly handled, and during all these years have waited for the convenient time to devote to it more study and research, with the view of supplying at least sufficient details to render any one, ignorant of Chinese and medicine, able to grasp the subject and determine its usefulness or otherwise as a prophylactic and curative agent. Unfortunately the press of work, necessitated by the care of a large hospital and other duties, has prevented me from pursuing further this study. The subject was brought by me before the Peking Oriental Society a few years ago, and it is now published in their Journal.

Dr. Roth has been the most prominent exponent and successful practitioner of the system in Great Britain. As an Hungarian exile after the Russian invasion which crushed the Hungarian cause in 1849, he settled in London after studying Chinese in Paris for some time, and chose this speciality in which he rose to eminence. He published numerous works on the subject which are well known, the chief of which are—The Cure of Chronic Diseases by Movements, Handbook of the Movement Cure, On Paralysis in Infancy, The Prevention of Special Deformities, The Treatment of Writer's Cramp, etc., etc. He presented the present writer with copies of all his published works. His Hand-book is characteristically "dedicated to all Medical Practitioners who are disposed to examine before they condemn." His work on Infantile Paralysis is dedicated to my friend and namesake Dr. R. E. Dudgeon, who was the first to befriend the exile on landing on our shores, and who was the first to give proof of this confidence by placing some patients under his care. I visited Dr. Roth at his residence, 48 Wimpole St., London, on more than one occasion, where he showed me his institution for carrying out this treatment by movement. He had a similar institution at Brighton.

Amiot says Kung-fu consists in two things,—the posture of the body, and the manner of respiration. There are three principal postures,—standing, sitting, lying. The priests of Tao enter into the greatest detail of all the attitudes, in which they vary and blend the different postures. As these, however, have more connexion with their doctrines than the medical part of Kung-fu, it will be enough to indicate the general principles. The different modes, in the three principal positions, of stretching, folding, raising, lowering, bending, extending, abducting, adducting the arms and legs, form a variety of numerous attitudes. The head, the eyes, and the tongue, have each their movements and positions. The tongue is charged to make in the mouth such operations as balancing, pulsating, rubbing, shooting, etc., in order to excite salivation. The eyes close, open, turn, fix, and wink. The Tauists pretend, when they have gazed for a long time, first on one side then on the other, in regarding the root of the nose, that the torrent of thought is suspended, that a profound calm envelopes the soul, and a preparation for a doing-nothing inertia which is the beginning of the communication with spirits.

Regarding respiration, there are three ways,—one by the mouth, one by the nose, and inspiration by the one and expiration by the other. In the three modes of respiration, sometimes it is the inspiration that is, as Amiot puts it, precipitée, filée, pleine or éteinte; sometimes it is the expiration, sometimes also both. The other principal differences which lie at the base of Kung-fu in respiration, as noted by Amiot, are inspiration and expiration by sifflement, haleinée, sauts, repetition, attraction, and deglutition.

It has now been said in what Kung-fu consists. It lies with art to choose and combine them, to change and repeat them according to the malady which it is sought to cure. The morning is the best time for it. After the sleep of the night, the blood is in a state of greater repose, the humours are more tranquil, and the organs more supple, especially if one has been careful to sup lightly. Fat persons, or those charged with humours, gain it always by eating nothing at night; and this preparation is absolutely necessary for certain maladies.

In Amiot's Notice, twenty figures are given illustrative of the text. In each of the postures, the principal thing is to respire in a particular manner a certain number of times, and to proportion the length of the Kung-fu to the malady. The body is either half nude or dressed, and the position is either standing or sitting. There are series of each. In respiration, the mouth must be half full of water or saliva. Various potions, decoctions, and drugs, are ordered to be taken before or after Kung-fu; they seem to have been added in the course of time, to facilitate the effects.

Amiot dispensed with entering into greater details, as Kung-fu was only a bagatelle, or .at least may be so merely; yet, as he might fail to make his meaning clear, and as otherwise, as he says, it is always good to speak to the eyes, he had figures copied to give an idea of the subject. In a few words, he indicates the different maladies which they are said to cure, in order that the European physician may be in a position to pronounce on this singular practice. Of the twenty figures drawn, although seventeen are given for the sitting posture, it would be necessary, he says, to add many more to give all the attitudes and positions which are blended with the posture; "but in truth we have not had the courage to copy out a larger number," or, as Huc says in speaking of current facts in Chinese medicine, he prefers to abstain because, says he, "Le vrai peut quelquefois n’être pas vraisemblable." Amiot says—"The account which we have under our eyes is in a manner so obscure and in terms so bizarre that we have not ventured to risk a translation of it." If some alleviation to the ills of humanity is the result of it, he will believe himself well recompensed for the courage he has had in risking the Notice.

The physical and physiological principles of the art are the following, and I am indebted to M. Dally for this resumé.

1.—That the mechanism of the human body is altogether hydraulic, that is to say, that the free circulation of the blood, of the humours (i.e., the lymph), and of the spirits, and the respective equilibrium which modifies their movements and their reciprocal action, being all the time the weight and the wheels of the human body, the health subsists only by this circulation, and this equilibrium, wherein it is re-established, only by their re-establishment.

2.—That the air, which without cessation enters the blood and the lymph through the lungs, being as the balance which tempers and restores their fluidity, can neither be re-established nor subsist of itself.

The consequences of these two principles are:—

1.—That the circulation of liquids in the human body having to conquer the two great obstacles of weight and friction, everything which tends to diminish the one or the other will aid in re-establishing it when it is altered.

2.—As the activity and elasticity of the air increases the fluidity of the liquids, and facilitating by that means their movement, all that tends to increase or diminish the force and volume of them in those of the human body, ought to accelerate or retard their circulation.

These principles and consequences being supposed, the defenders of Kung-fu enter into very great details, to approximate it to the sympathetic correspondence of the different parts of the body, the action and reaction of the great organs of the circulation, of the secretion of the lymph, of the digestion of the aliments, etc. So much for the principles. What of the theory?

There are the two essential principles of Kung-fu,—the posture of the body, and the mode in which respiration is quickened, retarded, and modified.

1.—If we look at the circulation of the blood, lymph, and spirits, on the side of the obstacles which the weight opposes to it, and of the friction which retards it, it is evident that the mode in which the body is straight or bent, lying or raised, the feet and hands stretched or bent, raised, lowered or twisted, ought to work in the hydraulic mechanism a physical change which facilitates or impedes it. The horizontal situation, being that which diminishes the greatest obstacle of the weight, is that also which is most favourable to the circulation. That of being upright, on the contrary, leaving all its resistance to the action of the weight, ought necessarily to render the circulation more difficult. For the same reason, according as one holds the arms, the feet, and the head, raised, or inclined, or bent, it ought to become more or less easy for it. This is not all; that which retards it, in one place, gives it more force, where it does not find any obstacle; and, from that time, it assists the lymph and the blood to overcome the engorgements which obstruct their passage there. One can further add that, the more it has been impeded in one place, the more its impetuosity brings it back there with force when the obstacle is removed.

It follows from this that the different postures of Kung-fu, well directed, ought to operate in a salutary disengagement in all the maladies which spring from an embarrassed, retarded, or even interrupted circulation. Now, how many complaints are there that are not thus caused? One can even demand if, except fractures, wounds, etc., which derange the bodily organisation, there are any which do not so originate?

2.—It is certain that the heart is the prime mover of the circulation, and the force which it has to produce and conserve it is one of the grand marvels of the world. It is further certain that there is a sensible and continual correspondence between the beatings of the heart, which fills and empties itself of blood, and the movements of dilatation and contraction of the lungs, which empty and fill themselves with air by inspiration and expiration. This correspondence is so evident that the beating of the heart increases and diminishes immediately, in proportion to the acceleration or retardment of the respiration. Now, if we inspire more air than we expire of it, or vice versâ, its volume ought to diminish or augment the total mass of blood and lymph, and ought to invigorate more or less the blood which is in the lungs. If one hurries or retards the respiration, one ought to hurry or weaken the beatings of the heart. The bearing of this on Kung-fu is self-evident, and need not further be illustrated. It is evident that, in accelerating or retarding the respiration, we accelerate or retard the circulation, and by a necessary consequence that of the lymph; and that, in the case of inspiring more air than we expire, we diminish or augment the volume of the air which is therein contained. Now, all this mechanism being assisted by the posture of the body, by the combined and assorted position of the members, it is evident that it ought to produce a sensible and immediate effect upon the circulation of the blood and lymph, an effect physical, necessary, and intimate, linked to the mechanism of the body, an effect so much the more certain as the repose of the night has rendered the organs more supple, as the diet of the evening has diminished the plenitude of the arteries, of the veins, and of the canals of the absorbents and lacteals. The object of the Notice in the Mémoires, Amiot says, is not to teach Kung-fu, but to enable European physicians to examine its value without prejudice.