+ + +

The rather amusing comments are those of Willem ten Rhijne added when he quoted the passage in his own book on acupuncture published twenty-five years later. e

Thus the earliest observations by a European medical man must have been made about + 1628, though they were not known in Europe until three more decades had passed. De Bondt must have written them down soon after the appearance in China of the book which represented the acme of the tradition, the Chen Chiu Ta Chheng (cf. p. 1 59 above); but at that time European physicians were only on the periphery Chinese medicine. His Percgrinafam . .. ( + 1614), written from + 1562 onwards, perhaps the first of all autobiographical novels, "as built on essentially true materials, even though not all the experiences described "rere his own..He "rrote it almost as .a satire on the proceedings of the Europeans in Asia, giving warning that without a greater measure of friendship and morality in their dealings with other peoples, religions, and cultures, their empire-building would come to nothing. But neither in the French translation of B. Figuier (+ 1645) nor in the English of H. Cogan (+ 1653) can we find anywhere mention of acupuncture or moxa.