Acupuncture Anesthesia and Needle Treatment for the Deaf Children in China

Abstract

At the invitation of the Chinese Medical Association, we visited China for nearly a month in June, 1972, observing the present situation in Chinese medicine and exchanging opinions with Chinese doctors.
I was shown a thyroidectomy, stomach extraction and appendectomy under acupuncture anesthesia at the People's Hospital in Canton. In our field of otorhinolaryngology, they showed us many oparations (deviatomy, sinectomy, tonsillectomy, tympanoplastic etc) conducted under acupuncture anesthesia at other hospitals. The surgeons seemed to have great confidence in the method.
To treat the children with impaired hearing the needles are inserted around the ears and hands, legs, on the school for the deaf as a part of the curriculum. With acupuncture therapy twelve percent of the deaf children regain normal speaking ability and sixteen percent the ability to understand conversations, but I found the diagnosis and hearing test in China insufficient; the patients receive no examination from otorhinolaryngologists, nor hearing tests by audiometer. Therefore, I have great doubt as to whether the rate of cure is as high as they claim.
But Chinese medicine is no miracle. It embodies the wishes of the peoples. They recount some cases which Western doctors find hard to believe. It is our furture duty to probe these seemingly miraculous facts with the instruments of science.