Now, Let Me Tell You About My Appendectomy in
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by James Reston PEKING, July 25--There is
something a little absurd about a man publishing an obituary notice on his
own appendix, but for the last 10 days this correspondent has had a chance to
a learn little about the professional and political direction of a major
Chinese hospital from the inside, and this is a report on how I got there and
what I found. In brief summary, the
facts are that with the assistance of 11 of the leading medial specialists in
Peking, who were asked by Premier Chou En-lai to
cooperate on the case, Prof. Wu Wei-jan of the
Anti-Imperialist Hospital's surgical staff removed my appendix on July 17
after a normal injection of Xylocain and Bensocain, which anesthetized the middle of my body. There were no
complications, nausea or vomiting. I was conscious throughout, followed the
instructions of Professor Wu as translated to me by Ma Yu-chen
of the Chinese Foreign Ministry during the operation, and was back in my
bedroom in the hospital in two and a half hours. However, I was in
considerable discomfort if not pain during the second night after the
operation, and Li Chang-yuan, doctor of acupuncture
at the hospital, with my approval, inserted three long thin needles into the
outer part of my right elbow and below my knees and manipulated them in order
to stimulate the intestine and relieve the pressure and distension of the
stomach. That sent ripples of pain
racing through my limbs and, at least, had the effect of diverting my
attention from the distress in my stomach. Meanwhile, Doctor Li lit two
pieces of an herb called ai, which looked like the
burning stumps of a broken cheap cigar, and held them close to my abdomen
while occasionally twirling the needles into action. All this took about 20
minutes, during which I remember thinking that it was a rather complicated
way to get rid of gas in the stomach, but there was noticeable relaxation of
the pressure and distension within an hour and no recurrence of the problem
thereafter. I will return to the
theory and controversy over this needle and herbal medicine later. Meanwhile,
a couple of disclaimers. Judging from the cables
reaching me here, recent reports and claims of remarkable cures of blindness,
paralysis and mental disorders by acupuncture have apparently led to
considerable speculation in Hardly a Journalistic Trick On the other side, it has
been suggested that maybe this whole accidental experiment of mine, or at
least the acupuncture part of it, was a journalistic trick to learn something
about needle anesthesia. This is not only untrue, but greatly overrates my
gifts of imagination, courage and self-sacrifice. There are many things I
will do for a good story, but getting slit open in the night or offering myself as an experimental porcupine is not among them. Without a single shred of
supporting medical evidence, I trace my attack of acute appendicitis to Henry
A. Kissinger of the White House staff. He arrived in But when we reached Three days later, at
precisely 10:30 AM, while I was describing to several Foreign Ministry
officials at the Peking International Club the unquestionable advantages of
my interviewing Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Premier Chou
and every other prominent official I could think of, Chen Chu,
the head of the ministry's information service interrupted to say that he had
"a little news item." "Mr. Kissinger had
been in The First Stab of Pain At that precise moment, or
so it now seems, the first stab of pain when through my groin. By evening I
had a temperature of 103 degrees and in my delirium I could see Mr. Kissinger
floating across my bedroom ceiling grinning at me out of the corner of a
hooded rickshaw. The next day I checked
into the The hospital had been
established by the Rockefeller Foundation of New York in 1916 and supported
by it, first as the Union Medical College of Peking and later as the By coincidence I had had a
letter before leaving My wife and I were taken
to Building No. 5, which is the wing used to serve the Western diplomatic
corps and their families. On the right of the entrance was a large sign
quoting Chairman Mao (it was removed during our stay). "The time will
not be far off" It said, "when all the aggressors and their running
dogs of the world will be buried. There is certainly no escape for
them." We were taken at once by
elevator to the third floor and installed in a suite of plain but comfortable
rooms with large light-blue-bordered scrolls of Chairman Mao's poems on the
walls and tall windows overlooking a garden filled with cedars. It was a
blazing hot and humid evening, with the temperature at 95 degrees, but a revolving
fan at least stirred the air. I stripped and went to bed. Tests and a Checkup A few minutes later the
two doctors who had originally called on me at the Hsin
Chiao Hotel came in and said they had arranged some
tests. They were Prof. Li Pang-chi, a calm and kindly man who was the
"responsible person" for the case, and Chu
Yu, a visiting surgeon and lecturer at the Professor Li, who
understood and spoke a little English, explained that other doctors would
examine me later and that there would be consultations about what was to be
done. A parade of nurses and
technicians then slipped quietly into the room. They bathed me with warm
towels. They checked everything I had that moved or ticked. The took blood out of the lobe of my ear. They took my
temperature constantly, measure pulse and blood pressure and worried over a
cardiogram showing a slightly irregular heartbeat. They were meticulous, calm
and unfailingly gentle and cheerful. An hour later the
consultants summoned by Premier Chou arrived; surgeons, heart specialists,
anesthetists, members of the hospital's revolutionary committee, or governing
body. Each in turn listened to the offending heartbeat. I felt like a beached
white whale at a medical convention and was relieved when they finally
retired for consultation and returned with the verdict; "Acute
appendicitis. Should be operated on as soon as possible." They sought my decision.
It did not seem the time to ask for a raincheck. Accordingly, at a little
after Everything Was Roses Everything was roses after
that. I was back in my room talking with my wife by 11. The doctors came by
to reassure me that all had gone well and show me the nasty little garbage
bag they had removed. They asked my interpreter, Chine Kuei-hua,
to remain at the hospital, gave me an injection to relieve the pain and lit a
little spiral of incense to perfume the room for the night. Since then I have lived
with the rhythm of what must be the quietest city hospital in the world,
constantly regaining strength and acquiring an intense curiosity about the
politics and medical philosophy of the doctors in attendance. They insist that the two
cannot be separated and they are quite frank in saying that the sole purpose
of their profession since the Cultural Revolution of 1966 - 1969 is to serve
all the people of For this purpose medical
education and medical procedures have been transformed. The doctors at the The Anti-Imperialist
Hospital is run by a four-man revolutionary committee--Tung
Teo, chairman and his deputies, Huang Chung-li, Shen Pao-hung
and Tsui Ching-yi--two of
whom are qualified physicians and two of whom are not. Discussion and Criticism They meet with the
professional staff of the hospital constantly for discussion of the
philosophy of Chairman Mao and for common criticism of each other and their
work, and they discuss the procedures with the zeal of religious fanatics,
constantly repeating, as in a litany, the need to improve their work and
their moral purpose in the service of the state. To understand the urgency
of That helps explain the
current emphasis on rapid expansion of the medical corps and the
determination of the Government to increase the use of herbal medicine and
acupuncture. Dr. Li Chang-yuan, who used needle and herbal medicine on me, did not
go to medical college. He is 36 years old and learned his craft as an
apprentice to a veteran acupuncturist here at the hospital. Like most young
apprentices in this field, thousands of whom are being trained,
he practiced for years with the needles on his own body. "It is better
to wound yourself a thousand times than to do a single harm to another
person." He said solemnly. Effects Were Observed The other doctors watched
him manipulate the needles in my body and then circle his burning herbs over
my abdomen with obvious respect. Prof. Li Pang-chi said later that he had not
been a believer in the use of acupuncture techniques "but a fact is a
fact there are many things they can do." Prof. Chen Hsien-jiu of the surgery department of the hospital said
that he had studied the effects of acupuncture in overcoming post-operative
constipation by putting barium in a patient's stomach and observing on a
fluoroscope how needle manipulation in the limbs produced movement and relief
in the intestines. Even the advocates of
Western medicine believe that necessity has forced innovation and effective
development of traditional techniques. Mr. Show quotes Dr. Hsu
Hung-tu, a former deputy director of the hospital
as saying: "Diseases have inner and outer causes. The higher nervous
system of the brain affects the general physiology." Professor Li said that
despite his reservations he had come to believe in the theory that the body
is an organic unity, that illness can be caused by imbalances between organs
and that stimulation from acupuncture can help restore balance by removing
the causes or congestion or antagonism. Dramatic Cures Reported The controlled Chinese
press is reporting on cases that go well beyond the relief of pain in the
gastrointestinal tract and illnesses of the nervous system or those of
neurological origin. It is reporting not only successes in treating paralysis
and arthritis but spectacular results in curing blindness and deafness. While I have no way of
knowing the validity of the reports, the faith even of the professionally
qualified doctors at the "We are just at the
beginning of all this." Professor Li said as he prepared to unstitch me
and set me free. "We have gone through great changes in this hospital.
We are now treating between 2,500 and 3,000 patients here every day--over a
hundred of them by acupuncture for everything from severe headaches to
arthritis--and we are learning more about the possibilities all the
time." I leave with a sense of
gratitude and regret. Despite its name and all the bitter political slogans
on the walls, the hospital is an intensely human and vibrant institution. It
is not exactly what the Rockefeller Foundation had in mind when it created
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