Show CHINESE SURGERY f Fortitude Under the Knife Alcohol in China The fortitude and endurance of a Chinaman under the surgeons knife have long been known The traits are of course less noticeable now than in the days anterior to the age of chloroform but even now they are frequently put to the test In circumstances circum-stances where the surgeons in the isolated situations are compelled to undertake operations unaided or vyhere otherwise the exhibition of chloroform is contraindicated and in the minor operations of surgery When so tested the Chinaman will endure without flinching a degree of pain that to the more highly developed devel-oped nervous system of the westerner would be wellnigh impossible The fact is to be discounted that in the case of the poorer Chinese a prolonged pro-longed course of low living and practical prac-tical starvation has frequently added it results to the original trouble while the native practitioners are doing their best or worst before the case is submitted to the western surgeon sur-geon and this materially affects the progress of many of our patients I Dr John C Thomson of Hong Kong writes in the China Medical Missionary Journal but other things being equal recovery I and convalescence are very much more rapid and complete in the average Chinaman than in the average Englishman Reasons for this difference are not entirely bbvious but the opinion may be hazarded that the simpler feeding habits of the Chinese and their equable mental constitution form at least some of the causes of the higher vitality of their tissues The popularly accepted notion that the Chinamen live on rice is indeed very far from the truth since even the poorest manage to add a few green vegetables and a little fish and pork to the rice which is the staple national diet but taken all around the China mans fpod is certainly more simple and probably more nutritious than the food of an Englishman under analag ous circumstances His use of alcohol is also much less injurious to his tissues tis-sues than its use by a large proportion propor-tion of Europeans The native spirit samshoo is very extensively consumed but it is invariably in minute quanti ties and never excepting with meals intoxication being a thng practically unknown in China The tranquility of the Chinese minds is proverbial A Chinaman is never In a hurry Provided Pro-vided he be given a hope of ultimate relief it rarely maters to him whether his stay in hospital Is to extend over a week or a month and this absence of all worry probably goes far along with other facts I have stated to account ac-count for the kindly reaction of his tissues under the surgeons knife |