Le Compte, who had less reason to be cautious, from his having left the country, than other missionaries who are doomed to remain there for life, positively says, that the physicians always endeavour to make themselves secretly acquainted with the case of the patient, before they pronounce upon it, as their reputation depends more on their assigning the true cause of the disorder than on the cure. He then proceeds to tell a story of a friend of his who, being troubled with a swelling, sent for a Chinese physician. This gentleman told him very gravely, that it was occasioned by a small worm which, unless extracted by his skill, would ultimately produce gangrene and certain death. Accordingly one day after the tumour, by the application of a few poultices, was getting better, the doctor contrived to drop upon the removed poultice a little maggot, for the extraction of which he assumed to himself no small degree of merit. Le Compte's stories, however, are not always to be depended on. The priests are also a kind of doctors, and make plaisters for a variety of purposes, some to draw out the disease to the part applied, some as charms against the evil spirit, and others which they pretend to be aphrodisiac; all of which, and the last in particular, are in great demand among the wealthy. In this respect the Chinese agree with most nations of antiquity, whose priests were generally employed as physicians. The number of quacks and venders of nostrums is immense in every city who gain a livelihood by the credulity of the multitude. One of this description exhibited in the public streets of Canton a powder for sale as a specific for the bite of a snake; and to convince the crowd of its immediate efficacy, he carried with him a species of this reptile, whose bite was known to be extremely venemous. He applied the mouth of the animal to the tip of his tongue, which began to swell so very rapidly, that in a few minutes the mouth was no longer able to contain it. The intumescence continued till it seemed to burst, and exhibited a shocking sight of foam and blood, during which the quack appeared in extreme agonies, and excited the commiseration of all the bye-standers. In the height of the paroxysm he applied a little of his powder to the nose and the inflamed member, after which it gradually subsided, and the disorder disappeared. Though the probability in the city of any one person being bit with a snake was not less perhaps than a hundred thousand to one, yet every person present bought of the miraculous powder, till a sly fellow maliciously suggested that the whole of this scene might probably have been performed by means of a bladder concealed in the mouth.