Education: Too Big

Visiting Peking in the '20s, a wealthy Manhattan engineer named Guion M. Gest got relief from a painful eye disease, and picked up a hobby. For his ailment, Commander I. V. Gillis, U.S. naval attaché in Peking at the time, recommended an ancient Chinese eye medicine, concocted and sold by a Peking family. The medicine eased the engineer's pain, and he decided forthwith to begin collecting a library of Chinese medical books. In due time, Engineer Gest went back to the U.S., but before he left he commissioned Navyman Gillis to act as his agent and expanded his library idea to...

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