I believe that this is
the only case in which rank can be bought or sold in Japan. In China, on
the contrary, in spite of what has been written by Meadows and other
admirers of the examination system, a man can be what he pleases by
paying for it; and the coveted button, which is nominally the reward of
learning and ability, is more often the prize of wealthy ignorance.
The saints who are alluded to above are the saints of the whole country,
as distinct from those who for special deeds are locally worshipped.
Touching the remedy of the fox's liver, prescribed in the tale, I may
add that there would be nothing strange in this to a person acquainted
with the Chinese pharmacopoeia, which the Japanese long exclusively
followed, although they are now successfully studying the art of healing
as practised in the West. When I was at Peking, I saw a Chinese
physician prescribe a decoction of three scorpions for a child struck
down with fever; and on another occasion a groom of mine, suffering from
dysentery, was treated with acupuncture of the tongue. The art of
medicine would appear to be at the present time in China much in the
state in which it existed in Europe in the sixteenth century, when the
excretions and secretions of all manner of animals, saurians, and
venomous snakes and insects, and even live bugs, were administered to
patients.
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