IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CH. LXI RECORDS OF SECTIONAL COMMAND 125
to a sort of medical note-book (Fig. 119, 8). Some of
them contain ` case records ' and prescriptions for particular patients, others general recipes for men or ailing animals, mostly with special mention of the physicians with whom they originated. As a sample, I may mention the record left by the medical attendant ` Mr. An-kuo ' of his twentieth consultation in the sad case of ` Mr. An Tien-hui,' who, having been benumbed with cold and in consequence tumbled out of his car, had injured himself internally, and who even after thirty days of treatment still suffered in his chest and extremities.
Of the great mass of records, which comprise chiefly reports, orders, and miscellaneous memos of military administration along the Limes, it is impossible to
11 mention here more than a few. Thus, in a ` circular to
the posts of the Yü-mên Barrier,' a sectional commander regrets to acknowledge the absence of certain soldiers at the time of the official inspection, and gives due warning of the punishments to be awarded in such cases.
! The ` I-tsou Company ' here specified appears to have
garrisoned this post right through the period covered by
the records. Elsewhere we hear of difficulties about
effective signalling, the distribution of duties among the men at the actual watch-posts, and such like.
A very interesting find, the archaeological importance of which has only been realized since M. Chavannes' interpretation, was a narrow strip of strongly woven cream-coloured silk bearing a line of Chinese characters
inked in. This states precisely the length, weight, and price of a bale of silk, from the edge of which it had been torn off. The name of the place of manufacture, Yen-ch'êng, a locality in Shan-tung, serves to fix the date of its production at the close of the first, or in the early part of the second, century A.D. But what I greeted with particular interest is the statement there made of the width of the silk piece, viz. two feet and two inches. We
IS know that the Chinese foot, with its decimal division into
ten inches, has varied very considerably under succeeding dynasties. But when at the British Museum I came to measure up this very strip of silk with the bootmaker's
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