the dragon flourished in art without a set of specific associations

Shanghai is a great center for [fossil trade]; and the raw article can be procured here in quantity. In other large towns you can only get the prepared drug in a calcined state. These fossils are called Lungche, or 'Dragon's teeth;' and the idea about them is that in olden time the world consisted of monsters who were incessantly fighting and killing one another […] The monsters were large and powerful brutes; and in their teeth and bones existed their strength; hence the remains of these ground to powder and taken internally must give strength to the weak invalid.