Japan and the Japanese

412 JAPAN. A. D. 1775 177G.
months.* Another remedy is friction, applied by certain profes
sors, and which proves of great use in pains of the limbs, arising
from the prevailing vicissitudes of the weather. Internal remedies
are generally exhibited in the form of simple decoctions, diuretic or
sudorific. Wonderful virtues are ascribed to certain drugs ; and,
on the whole, the Japanese appear, as in the use of unicorn's horn
and ginseng, to have been not less deluded by quack medicines and
medical theories than more enlightened nations.!
The doctors, like the priests, are distinguished from other people
by the fashion of wearing their hair. Thunberg states in one place
that they shaved the whole head ; in another, that they had
the option of retaining all their hair, like the boys and women.
According to Titsingh, physicians shave the head, and surgeons
wear the hair. Of surgery, however, they know next to nothing.
All the male Japanese who are neither priests nor physicians,
from the time the beard begins to grow, shave the head from the
forehead to the nape of the neck. The little hair left about the
neck and on the temples is well oiled, turned up in a cue, and tied
with several rounds of white string made of paper. The hair above
the tie is cut off, leaving about the length of a finger, which, being
stiffened with a sort of pomatum, is so bent that the tip of it is
made to stand against the crown of the head. This arrangement is
strictly atteuded to, the head being shaved every day, that tho
stumps of the growing hair may not disfigure it.
Women who have parted with their husbands also shave theii
heads at least Thunberg met with one such instance; but, in
general, the women retain all their hair, which they make smooth
with oil and mucilaginous substances, and either put close to the
head all round, or else (in the case of single women and scrving-
* Kampfer treats at length on the acupuncture and moxa, and gives in
his appendix a translation of a Japanese treatise on the parts to be selected
to be burnt, according to the object to be accomplished.
t Of the Dobiu powder, to which the Japanese ascribe singular effects,
M. Titsingh has given a curious account. Illustrations, p. 283. It was the
invention of Kot/ou, a great saint and sage, who, by profound meditation
on the writings both of his own sect and others, had discovered that the great
scourges of mankind are four ; namely, Sigokf, hell ; Goki , woman ; Tiiku*
tto, the man with a perverse heart ;
and Sioura, war.