It will readily be inferred, from the short view which has been taken of the state of society, that the disease occasioned by an unrestrained and promiscuous intercourse of the sexes cannot be very common in China. In fact, it is scarcely known, and the treatment of it is so little understood, in the few cases which do occur, that it is allowed to work its way into the system, and is then considered by them as an incurable leprosy. On arriving at the northern extremity of the province of Canton, one of our conductors had imprudently passed the night in one of those houses where, by the license of government, females are allowed to prostitute their persons in order to gain a livelihood. Here, it seems, he had caught the infection, and after suffering a considerable degree of pain, and not less alarm, he communicated to our physician the symptoms of his complaint, of the nature and cause of which he was entirely ignorant. He was a man of forty years, of a vigorous constitution and a gay cheerful temper, and had served as an officer in several campaigns from the different provinces of northern Tartary to the frontiers of India, yet such a disease did not consist with his knowledge. From this circumstance, and many others of a similar kind, I conclude that, although it may sometimes make its appearance in the capital, and even here but very rarely, it has originally, and no long time ago, found its way thither through the ports of Chu-san, Canton, and Macao, where numbers of abandoned woman obtain their subsistence by selling their favours to such of every nation as may be disposed to purchase them. It is, in fact, sometimes called by the Chinese the _Canton-ulcer_. No male physician is ever allowed to prescribe for pregnant women; and they consider it so great a breach of delicacy for a man to be in the same room with a woman when in labour that, whatever difficulties may occur, the case is left entirely to the woman who attends her. There is not a man-midwife in all China, and yet the want of them does not appear to be injurious to population. They could scarcely believe it possible that, in Europe, men should be allowed to practice a profession which, in their minds, belonged exclusively to the other sex.