Subject: Richters HerbLetter 95/09/12

From: [email-masked] (Conrad Richter)
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 95 20:42:12 EDT

-----------------------   Richters Herbletter   ------------------------
   Published by:     Richters, Canada's Herb Specialists
                     Goodwood, Ontario L0C 1A0, Canada
   Editor:           Conrad Richter <[email-masked]>
   
                     *** Trial issue: feedback welcome ***
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Issue ID: 95/09/12 00:00 GMT             

Content
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1. Foreigners Love Chinese Herbal Doctor, Locals Ignore Him  
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By Mark O'Neill
     BAISHA VILLAGE, China, Sept 8, Reuter -- Patients from as far away as 
Germany and Argentina flock to the makeshift clinic of Chinese herbal doctor 
He Shixiu.  Locals shun him as a quack.
     Foreign visitors arrive at He's home in this remote village in a rugged
corner of southwestern China by taxi and on mountain bikes, equipped with fancy
cameras and travelers checks.
     Local farmers dressed in grubby blue Mao suits give He a wide berth,
preferring to frequent the three doctors of Western medicine and the 10
"barefoot doctors" in the district.
     As a result of relentless self-promotion and inclusion in popular tourist
guidebooks published abroad, He's dark and cramped three-room clinic in a
rickety wooden house has become an essential stop for foreign travellers.
     Most stay in Lijiang, a popular tourist destination four miles away in the
southwestern province of Yunnan.
     He says he owes his fame to a lifelong study of herbs, his knowledge of
English and a fascination in the West for natural medicine.
     "When I was studying in Nanjing University in the late 1940s, my health
began to deteriorate and I started to seek treatment for myself," he said in an
interview in his clinic, filled with sacks and bottles of powdered herbs.
     "My father had some knowledge of herbal medicine. Overall, I have studied
2,000 herbs and use several hundred in my treatment," he said.
     After returning to his native village in 1953, He started to treat
patients. His work was discreet because in those early, radical days of
communist rule he was designated a "class enemy," son of a rich peasant who also
ran a small business.
     In the ultra-leftist 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, He's house was ransacked
and he was forbidden to practice. He was finally rehabilitated in the late 1970s
and opened a private clinic in 1985.
     Since then, He has received 50,000 patients from 80 countries, said his son
He Shulong. who has studied traditional Chinese medicine and plans to succeed
his father.
     Among the illnesses he treats are are bronchitis, asthma, coughs, stomach
ailments, rheumatism and ulcers.
     Visitors are served herbal tea in a room scented with He's collection of
grasses and leaves.
     He lives in a district whose 10,000 residents are from China's tiny Naxi
minority and in a village that has changed little in the last 30 years, with no
running water or private telephones.
     He does not demand money from patients but asks them to donate what they
want. He declined to give his income.
     His neighbors watch with a bemusement tinged with envy at the stream of
foreigners.
     "My estimate is that he has more than $12,000 in bank accounts in the names
of his family members," whispered He Huan, 58, squatting at the front door of
his small grocery shop down the street from the clinic.
     Local people prefer to turn for help to doctors of Western or Chinese
medicine, considering their treatment more effective, said He Huan, no relative
of the herbal doctor.
     Another reason locals do not consult He is for fear of contracting AIDS
that may have been imported by the foreign patients, he said.
     He said he has seen some AIDS patients and gave them herbal remedies, but
did not know how effective these would be.
     One of the district's three doctors of Western medicine is Shao Guangming,
41, who works out of a small room, its ceiling papered with newspapers, opposite
He Huan's shop.
     He Shixiu has had no training in Western medicine and so could not be
considered a doctor in a formal sense, Shao said.
     "Local people regard the whole thing as ridiculous," Shao said, adding that
He's self-promotion was unChinese. "Foreigners think too highly of him."
     While Shao buys costly Western medicines, He uses herbs he grows himself or
picks locally, Shao said.
     That means He's costs are low but his fees from foreigners are higher than
those Shao receives from his Chinese patients, said the Western doctor, who
earns $48-60 a month.
     He says the money is not his goal. "I will go on working until I die."

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   Richters Herb Catalogue: 100 pages, colour, over 730 herb plants, 
   seeds, and dried herbs.  Order by email at [email-masked].  
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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