N.Z. soccer XI sees acupuncture surgery

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33985, 28 October 1975, Page 9

N.Z. soccer XI sees acupuncture surgery

(By

DEREK ROUND.

, N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent)

TSINAN, (China)

A 35-year-old Chinese "oman lying on an operating table grinned at members of the touring New Zealand soccer team as they stood round her watching surgeons remove an ovarian cyst under acupuncture anaesthesia.

At the end of the hourlong operation she waved and smiled while the footballers and Chinese doctors clapped as she was wheeled out of the theatre.

In an adjoining operating theatre the New Zealanders watched a 46-year-old woman have a thyroid tumour removed from her neck under acupuncture, while a 47-year-old miner was being operated on for stomach cancer in another threatre. Both were wide awake throughout the surgery. The thyroid patient* sat up when it was over, clapped, and asked the applauding footballers how they were, put on her dressing gown, and walked out of the theatre.

It was an extraordinary spectacle, which had the team doctor, Dr Matthew Marshall, a former specialist anaesthetist in Glasgow and now a general practitioner in Whangarei. several times exclaiming: “It’s incredible.” Dr Marshall jokingly warned the players before the operations began that if they thought they were likely to faint they should stay outside, because he would be too busy watching the operation to look after them. Photographs But there were no casualties among the New Zealanders although a few left before the surgery finished. There must be few times when wide-awake patients have been operated on with a football team standing round watching. The players, officials, and! journalists with the teaml wore plastic jandals, blue cotton pants, jackets and' caps and masks while they! were in the theatres. “I don’t know how our I surgeons — or patients —| would react to a whole football team in the theatre, but' I can guess,” Dr Marshall said. But the Chinese doctors and nurses did not mind, and invited the New Zealanders to take photographs and stand on wooden steps near the operating table so that they could get a better view. The Chinese woman having a cyst removed gave Dr Marshall a big smile as he took her picture. Like the other patients, she had been given 20 minutes stimulation with the acupuncture needles before the surgery began and showed no sign of feeling’ any pain. The stimulationl continues throughout the: operation. A long electric needle was' inserted into the skin onj each side of her abdomen,' and six short needles were attached to her back.

The 47-year-old miner, [who had a cancerous tumour ‘at the upper end of his stomach, had two needles in his arm and two in his leg. He was given oxygen during the operation, but no general anaesthetic.

; To get to the tumour the ; surgeons had to go through I his chest, cutting the ribs jand collapsing the lung. Fewer drugs I The woman with the thyroid tumour had two needles m her hand and wrist and two on the right side of her neck, providing stimulation from six-volt, low-frequency current at the rate of 150200 impulses a minute in her arm and 2500-5000 a minute in her neck. Doctors said that she had no feeling as the surgeon cut through the muscle layer, but there was some sensation when they came to the thyroid itself. The* needles are removed at the end of the operation, but doctors said the patient remained under the influence iof acupuncture anaesthesia I for five to six hours, and this meant fewer postoperative pain-killing drugs were needed. Doctors at the Shantung People’s Hospital where the operations took place said they had performed 4000 operations under acupuncture anaesthesia since 1965, and it had been successful in 90 per cent of the cases. If it proves unsuccessful during the operation drugs are immediately used. The Chinese say acupuncture anaesthesia is safe, convenient, and economical, land enables patients to cooperate with the surgeon. Squeamish And the patient could eat and talk during the operation, a doctor said. The Chinese told Dr Mar-

shall that they found acupuncture particularly suitable and safe for acute accident cases. “It’s fantastic,’’ Dr Marshall said after he watched the surgery. The players’ reaction? The Mount Wellington full-back, Tony Sibley, said: i “I was surprised at myself. I thought I’d be squeamish, but I found it very interesting.”

The goalkeeper, Phil Dando, of Christchurch United, said: “I thought I’d be squeamish, too, but I was okay. It’s an education. I’m lost for words. You don’t expect to see anything like that.”

But the Mount Wellington link-man, Brian Turner, said: "It put me off my lunch.” The manager, Mr T. Killalea, of Lower Hutt, said: “It has been one of the highlights of our visit to China."