Page:Kidnapped in London.djvu/16

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Kidnapped in London.

It was not the obstructive ignorance of the East, but the jealousy of the West, which stepped in to thwart my progress. The law of Portugal forbids the practice of medicine, within Portuguese territory, by any one who is not possessed of a Portuguese diploma, obtainable only in Europe. Under this rule the Portuguese doctors took refuge and fought my claims to practise. They first forbade me to practise amongst, or prescribe for, Portuguese; the dispensers in the pharmacies were not allowed to dispense prescriptions from the pen of a doctor of any alien nationality; consequently my progress was hampered from the first. After futile attempts to establish myself in Macao, and at considerable pecuniary loss, for I had settled down little dreaming of opposition, I was induced to go to Canton.

It was in Macao that I first learned of the existence of a political movement which I might best describe as the for-