Not many ages after the Greek and Roman authors above quoted were describing the effects of mandrake in preventing the pain of operations, another plant, the Indian hemp, was employed for the same purpose in a more remote part of the world. M. Stanislas Julien, in an article on Chinese Medicine,[13] gives a notice of a work entitled “Koukin-i-tong, or a General Collection of Ancient and Modern Medicine,” in fifty volumes, 4to., and makes an extract from it respecting Hoa-tho, a practitioner, who flourished under the dynasty of Wei, between 220 and 230 of our era. Respecting Hoa-tho, it is stated that—“When he found that it was necessary to employ acupuncture, he applied it in two or three places; he did the same with the moxa, if it was indicated by the nature of the affection which he had to treat. But if the malady was situated in parts on which the needle, the moxa, or liquid medicines could not act—for example, in the bones, in the medulla of the bones, in the stomach, or the intestines, he gave to the patient a preparation of hemp (Ma-yo), and, at the end of some instants, he became as insensible as if he had been drunk, or deprived of life. Then, according to the case, he made openings and incisions, performed amputations, and removed the cause of mischief; he then brought together the tissues with points of suture, and applied liniments. After a certain number of days (at the end of a month, according to the annals of the later Hân) the patient found himself reestablished, without having experienced the slightest pain during the operation.” We are not informed of the way in which the hemp was administered. If insensibility was caused so quickly, as is stated, it must have been by inhaling the fumes of the hemp when exposed to heat, and not by taking it into the stomach. This view of the matter is rendered more probable by the circumstance that the ancient Scythians were in the habit of inhaling the fumes of hemp,[14] several centuries before the time of Hoa-tho, and also by the practice of the Hindoos at present, who inhale the fumes of hemp from a pipe. The remark that the patient became reestablished at the end of a certain number of days, must refer to his recovery from the wound caused by the operation, and we are not informed how long the state of insensibility continued.