CHAPTER VI
WATER, NATURE'S GREATEST REMEDY
While the samurai of ancient Japan believed to some extent in the "herbs and simples," they did not pin their faith to what we are prone to regard as "medicines." The lower classes had their charlatan advisers, to whom, in times of sickness, were paid such fees as the poor merchants, artisans, and labourers could raise. Shinto and Buddhists priests secured their fees for restorative miracles. The samurai patronised neither charlatans nor the wonder-workers of the temples. While these little athletic knights of old Japan made use of some of the herbs of field and forest as simple restoratives, they knew the greatest medicine of all—and they took no pains to impart the secret.
Under the circumstances, perhaps the samurai are not to be blamed for their extreme
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