CHINA’S HERB-DOCTORS ARE UNDER FIRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22665, 16 June 1948, Page 3

CHINA’S HERB-DOCTORS ARE UNDER FIRE

PEIPING, May 20,

China’s native herb-doctors, a vast and insanitary fraternity, are under fire. Their modern colleagues who have been Western-trained are demanding that they be debarred from legal recognition as medicos. Under the present law, any Chinese native doctor who has practised for more than five years, and presumably not made too many fatal mistakes, is allowed permanent status. At a three-day medical session, modern-method doctors declared that setting up rigorous standards for West-ern-trained practitioners, but allowing any orderly or doctor’s apprentice to practice in old-fashioned style, was grossly unfair. They are demanding that the law be changed. The herb-doctors have ancient tradition on their side, plus the fact that there are not nearly enough doctors for China’s vast mass of peopie. The people at large have faith in the vile and complicated concoctions compounded in medicine shops. Analysts have proved that this faith is not altogether unfounded. Valuable drugs have been found and recognised in Chinese herbs, among other ingredients- that the squeamish would sooner not hear about. There are also faith-healers and mas-sage-men, and some who practice the piercing of the patient’s body with needles in accordance with native medical textbooks with diagrams showing where to and where not to stick. Remarkable _ cures have been claimed for the practice. There is also no doubt that it can be disastrous in unskilful hands. It is not likely that the native brand of doctors will disappear for some time yet.