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124 pp. Illustrated. 9x6" original illustrated wrappers. 

The lot also includes:

• S.P. Lee & Sons, Chinese Herb Company. Nature’s Way to Health / How to Get it and How to Keep it. 2 copies, both in original wrappers. 48pp. Los Angeles, 1936 and 1940.

As recorded by Louise Leung Larson in her 2001 book “Sweet Bamboo, the Memoir of a Chinese American Family”, her father, Tom Leung, had a remarkable climb to fame and fortune as a Los Angeles “Herbal Doctor”, despite more than 100 arrests (possibly prompted by jealous physicians) for practicing medicine without a license. Immigrating to the US in 1902, he first gained repute as “medical adviser” to Chinese reformer Kang Yuwei, exiled in North America during the last years of the Manchu dynasty (who later influenced a young Mao Tse-tung). Leung, by well-orchestrated publicity, then built up a national mail-order business, dispensing Thousand Wonders Oil and other quack-like herbal remedies. But this book shows that he also engaged in the serious practice of what his now called Chinese Traditional Medicine.  This book shows photos of Leung and his family (including a son named for President Taft), the handsomely-appointed office of his Herb Co. “in the heart of the business section of Los Angeles”, and his home on West Pico, “one of the most beautiful…owned by a Chinese in the city.” In addition to a biography of Leung and many testimonials from satisfied caucasian patients, there is much detailed information about proper diet and non-surgical treatment of an entire spectrum of diseases from cancer, typhoid, scarlet fever and tuberculosis to eczema, pneumonia and influenza, with separate chapters on curing the common cold, asthma, diseases of women, diseases of the eye, and hemorrhoids. Though not the first Los Angeles imprint on “herbal science”- a Foo & Wing Herb Company published now-scarce books on the subject in 1897 and 1902 – Leung’s writings, perhaps because of legal persecution, appear to be of even greater rarity. WorldCat records 5 institutional copies of a 76-page imprint of 1928, but none of this much larger earlier edition. This is possibly the only surviving copy.