prescriptions for first, second, or third-rate medicine, according to
the purse.

[Illustration: THE TEACHING STAFF.

(_See page 233._)

_To face page 228._]

The male and female principle in nature, by which all things are
produced and which has been called the "warp and woof of Chinese
thought," forms the basis of Chinese medical science, and every line of
treatment must be in accordance with the laws laid down by this
dualistic principle.

Unfortunately, many of the more nutritive articles of diet, such as the
fowl and the egg, are frequently denied to the sick woman as falling
under that principle which makes them unsuited to many of her illnesses,
and while it is admitted that sleep is essential to a sick man, the
female patient must not be allowed to indulge in it except at night.
Milk is renowned for its heating properties, and is most unwillingly
consumed by the tubercular patient, who believes her disease to fall
under the heading of "fire" and knows that anything so heating will only
feed the flame. Had pears, cooked or uncooked, been ordered she would
fully have appreciated the wisdom which prescribed them.

All these startling innovations are carefully and intelligently
explained by the dispensary helpers and normal students who take the
practical side of their course in First Aid, Home Nursing, and Invalid
Cookery, in the dispensary. Their labours have not been in vain, and the
presence of the Great Physician has often been manifest in the midst,
as weary, heart-sick women whose ills were beyond our help have found
healing and, touching the hem of His garment, been made perfectly whole.

As the patients scatter, the students impress afresh upon their memory
how, and in what quantity, the medicine should be taken. Only too often
the printed directions are entirely disobeyed, and the week's supply
swallowed in one dose, on the strength of that unanswerable argument
with which we wrestled in the days of childhood:

If one dose = improvement,
Twenty doses = x, _i.e._ complete cure.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] Sewing-machine.

A CASKET OF JEWELS

"Happy is she who hath believed that there shall
be a perfecting of the things which have been
spoken to her from the Lord!"--The Gospel
according to Luke.

"There is nothing more divine than the education
of children."--PLATO.

"The fate of empires depends upon