Such is the system of Kung-fu, and P. Amiot, says Dally, one of the most profound mathematicians of his time, has perfectly understood the grandeur of this system when he says that all the known postures and attitudes do not form a moiety of those which the Tauists have imagined.

These are M. Daily's observations on the system. He then adds these on the method. We know the elementary movements of Kung-fu and their various combinations to be infinite. By the examples which we have given of the physiological effects of friction, combined with tension or relaxation of the abdominal muscles, one can judge with what precision and exactitude these effects can be produced, in order to combat the diseases against which they are indicated, such as constipation, diarrhoea, or any other enteric trouble. In order to better appreciate the power of Kung-fu, it would be necessary to make a special study of the thousand different modes of respiration; for this is the essential point, and, according to the observation of Amiot, the most difficult of this method. Yet, says M. Dally, the difficulty can be overcome by special physiological and anatomical study, and by the stern experience obtained by the effects. One can be assisted in this matter by the traditions of the employment of this exercise among the peoples of antiquity.

After citing instances, he sums up thus: - Upon this point, as upon all others, one comes back to the wisdom of high antiquity, where movement is still timid and partial, but which tends constantly to complete and generalize itself. Amiot's figures (4, 6, 12, and 20) recall to M. Dally the formulae similar to those which he has previously given, in affections of the abdominal region. He quotes figure 9 as a formula against vertigo and dazzling. It indicates a movement of double pressure of the head, combined without doubt with a movement of vibration and a certain respiration. He himself applied this remedy with success against vertigo and inveterate pains of the head. The physiological effect of this formula is innervation, molecular division, and increase of activity of the absorbent vessels. Applied to the head, it ought necessarily to bring back there the freedom of the functions. An analogous practice is found among the Greek physicians and in Ling's method. M. Dally has also verified attitude 15 against gravel, nephritic pains, and lumbago. He obtained instantaneous relief. As it is here only a question of a certain pressure upon the kidneys, with tension of the anterior muscles of the body, one is able to take the different attitudes which pre-dispose the muscles in the same manner, and to make them exercise this pressure by another person. This gymnastic remedy, M. Dally says, is an hereditary usage in Hungary. Amiot was afraid to risk a translation, which M. Dally deeply regrets; and he hopes, in the interests of science, that some able and curious expert is to be met with who will undertake to reconstitute this method, with the elements of which he has annotated the system. M. Dally here, in a foot note, refers to his visit in 1854 to Dr. Roth in London, who was the learned and zealous director of an establishment there. He spoke of the discovery he had made of the Notice du Cong-fu, in the Memoires sur les Chinois, praying him to examine this doctrine which had the greatest affinity with that of Ling. He hoped much from this step. M. Dally thought that efforts made in the libraries of Europe, and in the yearly papers sent by the missionaries in China, might probably find out the works which Amiot had consulted. The works with figures, consulted by Amiot, and many others, are now before the present writer.

In the meantime, continues our author, we remark in the Notice that the conditions of time and diet were accessory elements in the application of Kung-fu. We notice also in it that the simultaneous administration of movements, along with certain medicaments, was a practice foreign to the primitive and rational doctrine of this institution, as well as the superstitious practices with which it is to-day surrounded. Amiot does not say whether the system of Kung-fu is applicable to the treatment of deformities, luxations, and other surgical cases. In support of the treatment of surgical cases by this method, he (M. Dally) quotes from Lay's The Chinese as They Are and Dr. Williams' Middle Kingdom, and says he could multiply facts of this kind, which clearly establishes that the science of physiological movement furnishes the Chinese with effectual means in the treatment of maladies of all sorts. According to Du Halde, the residence of the Chief of the Tauists, called the Celestial Doctor (T'ien Sze), is in the department of Kan-chou Fu, in the province of Kansuh, a mountainous country which furnishes an extraordinary abundance of medicinal plants. There is the central establishment for the teaching of the doctrine. They possess secondary establishments, one of the most considerable being that in Kiangsi, where a crowd of sick come together from all parts, in search of a remedy for their ills.

M. Dally next gives us some observations on the principles and the theory. According to Amiot, the Tauists consider the human body as a purely hydraulic mechanism, and he explains their physical principles and their physiological theory according to this sole fundamental idea. In this case, there will be between the doctrine of the Tauists and those of the Iatro-mechanists such a similitude of affinity that one can believe that they pertain to the same school. Yet Amiot makes it understood that Kung-fu relies still upon other principles. The primitive priests considered the body not only as a physical and mechanical apparatus, but also as a chemical one. They recognized even that the physical and chemical laws of the body are subject to the influence of a superior principle, which rules and harmonizes them in the unity of the living being. This Chinese conception recalls exactly the theory of Ling - of mechanical, chemical, and dynamic agents, which balance themselves and hold themselves in equilibrium upon a central point which is the life and whence proceed the three principal agents. Dr. Bayes of Brighton, in his memoir entitled On the Triple Aspect of Chronic Disease, London, 1854, takes also for the base of his observations the theory of the Chinese balance of the three vital forces, which he borrowed probably from the doctrine of Ling. M. Dally has already spoken of them; it is necessary, he says, to revert to them again.