of the joint. Such cases are not infrequent both among adults and
children in all grades of society, due to this method of treatment.

One day I was called to see a lady who was in immediate need of
surgical treatment. She had three sons who were in high official
positions in the palace, and if their mother died they would have to
withdraw from official life and go into mourning for three years. When
men are thus compelled to resign the new incumbent is not inclined to
restore the office when the period of mourning is over. They were
therefore doubly anxious to have their mother recover. They had tried
all kinds of Chinese physicians and finally sent for me.

I explained the nature of the operation necessary, and gave them every
reason to hope for a speedy recovery, while without surgical treatment
she must surely die. They consented and the operation was successful.
She recovered rapidly for a few days until I regarded her as
practically out of danger. But one day when I called I found her bathed
in perspiration, shaking with fear, weeping and depressed. Her wound
was in an excellent condition and I could find no reason for her
despondency. I cheered her up, laughed and talked with her, gave her
such articles of diet as she craved, and left her happy. The next day I
again found her in the same nervous condition.

"Something is wrong with your mother of which you have not told me," I
said to her son.

"Before we sent for you," he said, "we had called a spirit doctor, who
went into a sort of trance, claimed to have descended into the spirit
world where he saw them making a coffin which he said my mother would
occupy before the fifteenth of the month. It is because that time is
approaching that she is filled with fear."

I talked with the lady, showed her how her wound was healing,
encouraged her to rest easy until the fifteenth, when I would spend the
day with her, after which she immediately began gaining strength and
soon recovered.

At another time I was called to see the wife of the president of the
Board of Punishments. I found an operation necessary. The next day I
found the patient delirious with a fever, and asked the husband if my
directions had been followed.

"I assure you they have," he answered. "But the cause of the fever is
this: Last evening while the servants were taking their meal she was
left alone for a short time. While they were absent, her sister who
lived on this street, a short distance