perations of agriculture and weaving. This
book was reprinted under the emperor K'ang Hsi, 1662-1723, and new
illustrations with excellent perspective were provided by Chiao
Ping-chen, an artist who had adopted foreign methods as introduced by
the famous Jesuit, Matteo Ricci. The standard work on agriculture,
entitled _Nung Cheng Ch'uean Shu_, was compiled by Hsue Kuang-ch'i,
1562-1634, generally regarded as the only influential member of the
mandarinate who has ever become a convert to Christianity. It is in
sixty sections, the first three of which are devoted to classical
references. Then follow two sections on the division of land, six on
the processes of husbandry, none on hydraulics, four on agricultural
implements, six on planting, six on rearing silkworms, four on trees,
one on breeding animals, one on food and eighteen on provision against
a time of scarcity.

Pen Ts'no.

_Medicine and Therapeutics._--The oldest of the innumerable medical
works of all descriptions with which China has been flooded from time
immemorial is a treatise which has been credited to the Yellow Emperor
(see above), 2698-2598 B.C. It is entitled _Plain Questions of the
Yellow Emperor_, or _Su Wen_ for short, and takes the form of
questions put by the emperor and answered by Earl Ch'i, a minister,
who was himself author of the _Nei Ching_, a medical work no longer in
existence. Without accepting the popular attribution of the _Su Wen_,
it is most probable that it is a very old book, dating back to several
centuries before Christ, and containing traditional lore of a still
more remote period. The same may be said of certain works on cautery
and acupuncture, both of which are still practised by Chinese doctors;
and also of works on the pulse, the variations of which have been
classified and allocated with a minuteness hardly credible. Special
treatises on fevers, skin-diseases, diseases of the feet, eyes, heart,
&c., are to be found in great quantities, as well as veterinary
treatises on the treatment of diseases of the horse and the domestic
buffalo. But in the whole range of Chinese medical literature there is
nothing which can approach the _Pen Ts'ao_, or _Materia Medica_,
sometimes called the Herbal, a title (i.e. _Pen Ts'ao_) which seems to
have belonged to some book of the kind in pre-historic ages. The work
under consideration was compiled by Li Shih-chen, wh