Along with San Francisco's Chinatown, came the Chinese doctor. "It was a dignified, orthodox, although ossified, system of medicine that the Chinese had brought.-- dating back forty-seven centuries to the emperior Shin Nong....With it came drug stores showing jars of herbs, and insects, preserved toads and snakes."
Chinese medicine has its Caucasian followers as well. One well known and respected Chinese practitioner, Li Po Ti, was best known for his cancer prescription.
LI PO TI'S FAMOUS CURE FOR CANCER
| Dragon's heart blood | 1 ounce |
| Pickled lizards | 2 ounces |
| Corea ginseng root | 1/2 ounce |
| Willow cricket skins | 12 ounces |
| Rattlesnake's tail | 3 ounces |
| Sweet-potato vine | 7 drachms |
| Black dates | 2 ounces |
| Red bark | 1 ounce |
| Devil-fish suckers | 3 ounces |
| Reindeer's horns (ground) | 3 1/2 ounces |
| Birds' claws | 1 1/2 ounces |
| Lotus leaves | 6 ounces |
| White nuts | 5 ounces |
| Coffin nails (old ones) | 8 drachms |
Boil the whole in two quarts of water.
Dose: A tablespoon every three hours.
The above excerpt was taken from California's Medical Story by Henry Harris, M.D. -1932
Chinese medicine was common in the 19th Century as thousands of Chinese came during and after the gold rush....not only to find gold but, without them, the transcontinental railroad and our levees would probably not have been built.
Yee Fung Cheung, a Chinese Herbalist with an office in Fiddletown, but who also practiced in Sacramento, produced "a famous cure." In 1862, Governor Leland Stanford's wife lay dying from a severe pulmonary disorder. After conventional medical treatments failed to restore her health, and hearing about Mrs. Stanford's illness, Yee ran to his shop and brewed an elixir that ultimately saved her life. The primary herb in the concoction was later identified as "majaung," a natural source of ephedrine commonly prescribed for pulmonary diseases.