An Article from Science and Medicine Magazine in China.
By Wu Xiaoming
Professor Feng Lida, deputy director of the Navy General Hospital in Beijing, believes that a Qigong doctor is different from a Qigong Master in that eh former needs a knowledge of Western Medicine science to help him treat patients more effectively.
Feng, 62, who has been researching the immunization effect of traditional Chinese deep breathing therapy from a Western medical point of view, will deliver a report on her findings at the first international symposium on the medical uses of Qigong, which opens today in Beijing.
Born into the family of a prominent general, Feng studied at the Medical School of Huaxi University in Cehngdu, the Department of Biology of the University of CA at Berkeley in the USA and the Leningrad Medical College in the Soviet Union, where she studied immunology and obtained an associate doctorate degree.
While in Leningrad, (now St Petersburg), she realized that existing treatment methods for diphtheria were ineffective because they did not improve the patient's immunity. She then began to treat patients with acupuncture with good results. Feng began her research on Qigong's immunizing effects in 1979, after hearing some patients say they were cured through Qigong.
In the summer of 1981, Feng and her assistants conducted experiments on the effect of Qigong on colon bacilli, the bacteria often used in medical experiments because of their strong resistance to treatment. They held a test tube containing bacilli and projected Qi, or vital energy on them for a minute. Microscopic photos showed that 44 to nearly 90 percent of the bacilli were destroyed - they swelled, broke or dissolved.
Similar experiments revealed that Qi also kills 66.7 to 98.9 per cent of treated dysentery bacilli and destroys flu bacteria.
Interestingly, Qigong can either destroy bacteria of help the proliferate, depending upon what kind of Qi a doctor directs on them.
Feng believes that after training by a Qigong doctor, a patient can activate the Qi within his or her body to help kill bacilli and cure an ailment.
A Qigong doctor's concentration influences the effect, a report by Feng's research group says, adding that bionic research and an instrument to measure the quantity and quality of Qi are needed to monitor Qi emissions.
Feng and her assistants have also conducted experiments on Qigong's effect on cancer cells.
Western medical treatment including surgery, radioactive and chemical therapies, often lower the immunity of the human body while killing cancer cells.
Feng hopes to find new ways to treat cancer that avoid this problem.
In another series of experiments different doctors treated cervical cancer cells with Qigong for 20 minutes. Results showed that a third to two thirds of the treated cancer cells were killed. In experiments in which stomach cancer cells were treated with Qi for 60 minutes, a quarter were destroyed. Microscopic photos revealed that both the surface and nucleus of these cells were destroyed and that the chromosome structure of these cells had been altered.
Similar experiments were later conducted at other hospitals in Beijing and the results were similar. Feng said.
Chinese scientists have found that Qi emissions are in fact a radiation filed mixed with infrared radiation, magnetic radiation, electrostatic charge and corpuscular streams. And foreign scientists have discovered that there are many places on the human body where the emission of these energies is strongest, and these spots are located close to the acupuncture points of traditional Chinese Medicine.
From June to December 1987, more than 200 cancer patients were treated with Qigong at the Navy Hospital. Two-thirds of them enjoyed a greater appetite and less pain and some were in higher spirits.
IN June of last year, an 80-year old man who had been diagnosed as suffering from advanced cancer of the esophageus went to the hospital for treatment. He could eat a little, was emaciated and spoke feebly.
A month-long Qigong treatment improved his ability to sleep and eat. X-ray and other examinations also indicated that his condition greatly improved.
In October 1986, a young Japanese was discovered to have a brain tumour 5 centimetres in diameter. Japanese doctors predicted that he could live only for another year or two, that surgery was impossible and that radioactive therapy would not help. The young man almost lost his eyesight and the left corner of his mouth was twisted. Feng. Who was invited to Japan, treated him with Qigong in addition to Western and other traditional Chinese therapies. Before long, the young man's eyes began to move and his sight started recovering. His mouth almost reassumed its former shape.
Feng believes that Qigong has enormous potential as an advanced branch of treatment. ;Our knowledge of the human body is still limited", she said. :Qigong will help us".
Foot Note: The above also depends greatly upon the state of mind that the patient is in when receiving the treatment. Many Western people have not responded to this kind of treatment simply because they believe that it will not work! It's a shame that we in the west have come to this condition of only believing in Western medicine and only trying TCM when all else has failed and when obviously it is then too late!
I remember being called in to treat a very rich business tycoon in Sydney with Qigong therapy. When I arrived, he was almost dead and in an oxygen tent! He died one day after!