This article is transcoded by SimpRead, original at www.zhihu.com
After the liberation, the country truly hoped that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) could take on half of the burden of modern clinical medicine and become genuine modern medicine.
But…
In 2004, Bu Xingkuan, then known as the leading figure in Chinese otolaryngology, Director of the Department of Otolaryngology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, and head of the WHO Deafness Prevention Center, published an article titled “How China’s Deafness Prevention Work Aligns with WHO”.
In the article, Bu Xingkuan reviewed the problems in China’s past work on treating ear, nose, and throat diseases, pointing out:
“Reviewing our work, there has been a relative emphasis on rehabilitation and a neglect of prevention. In treatment, false advertising is rampant, quackery prevails, serious misleading and misdiagnosis occur, and the deaf suffer needless harm. If these situations are not promptly corrected, it will not only be difficult to achieve WHO’s goal of reducing the burden of preventable hearing loss by half before 2010, but will also affect our country’s sustainable development in this field.”
So what does the “rampant false advertising, quackery, serious misleading and misdiagnosis, and needless harm to the deaf” that Bu Xingkuan mentioned actually refer to?
It refers to the three waves of the post-liberation “TCM acupuncture treatment for deafness” movements.
The reason why “TCM acupuncture treatment for deafness” had such a severely negative impact in Professor Bu Xingkuan’s view was that it was introduced directly into clinical practice before the safety and efficacy of acupuncture were thoroughly validated, ultimately leading to serious medical accidents.
There have been multiple clinical accidents in TCM history where “conclusions were reached before proper validation,” the longest-lasting and most harmful being the “TCM acupuncture treatment for deafness” phenomenon.
The first wave of the “TCM acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” peak: 1954
In 1954, the official media outlet Health News reported that acupuncture doctors Wu Zhisheng and Zhang Zhixue of the acupuncture clinic in Tiexi District, Shenyang, treated over 200 deaf-mute patients using acupuncture, with about 70% of cases able to speak after treatment.
Subsequently, the 1954 issue of People’s Daily reported that Yang Fuzhi at the Tianmen County Hospital in Hubei performed acupuncture treatment on deaf-mute school students, and after treatment, the students were able to sing and dance.
These two reports created a strong social reaction at the time and even had some influence worldwide.
Because many ancient TCM acupuncture cases for deaf-muteness existed in history, noted in the classical TCM text Zhen Jiu Jia Yi Jing (The A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion):
“Sudden deafness with turbid qi, unclear ears and eyes, take Tianyou (heaven’s window).”
The treatment method involved acupuncture at the Tinggong and Tianyou points with needles inserted 1.5 to 2 cun deep.
The Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang (Emergency Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold, Volume 30) also records:
“Tianyou and Sidu acupuncture points govern sudden deafness.”
This also involved acupuncture stimulation of points such as Tianyou.
The 1954 report was arguably the first time in modern history a hospital had clinically reproduced the miraculous case of acupuncture treating deaf-muteness in a modern clinical setting, with a 70% cure rate far exceeding all contemporary modern medical treatments for deaf-muteness.
This aligned perfectly with the ideological correctness of the era’s “Eastern wind prevailing over the Western wind.”
Therefore, a social atmosphere developed of “choose TCM for deaf-muteness treatment,” and the ENT departments in nearly all local hospitals introduced acupuncture therapy.
However, the harsh reality of clinical medicine is that all medical practices can be validated by reproducibility.
As more and more acupuncture treatment data for deaf-muteness emerged, the 1959 special issue of Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology published “Auditory Training for Children with Hearing Loss and Deaf-Muteness (with Preliminary Report of 22 Cases)” revealing a shocking fact:
The clinical acupuncture activities for deaf-muteness in various hospitals failed to reproduce the miraculous efficacy previously reported, and noted that TCM acupuncture could not cause permanent inner ear damage, calling for cessation of such acupuncture clinical activities.
However, in that era dominated by ideology, this article did not receive much attention.
So the acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness was not stopped but instead developed even more wildly.
The second wave “TCM treatment for deaf-muteness” peak: 1955 - 1968
Crazy times always produce crazy people and events.
At that time, the country proposed a medical trend of “Western medicine learns from Chinese medicine,” and the academic community began to criticize Western medicine for looking down on TCM, using the “ironclad fact” of “acupuncture curing deaf-muteness” to critique Western medicine’s anatomical explanations of ENT diseases.
In this atmosphere, many cases of deafness deemed permanent and irreversible by Western medicine were reportedly “cured” by acupuncture, used to prove that Western medicine was inferior to TCM and that one should learn from TCM.
People’s Daily published an article titled “Breaking the Deaf-mute Barrier; the Deaf Can Speak,” reporting that a young Western-trained doctor named Yang Fuzhi at Huangtan District Health Center in Tianmen County, Hubei, after studying acupuncture, successfully cured several patients previously assessed by Western medicine as having irreversible deafness.
According to the report, Yang Fuzhi treated 146 cases of deaf-muteness and deafness using deep needling combined with electroacupuncture, achieving an efficacy rate as high as 93.8%. This technique was regarded as an important achievement of that time’s “integration of Chinese and Western medicine in the new national medicine.”
For this, Yang Fuzhi, as an outstanding representative of “Western medicine learning from Chinese medicine,” was recognized by local government, transferred to Tianmen County People’s Hospital, and established an acupuncture department dedicated to treating deaf-muteness with acupuncture.
In 1966, the Liaoning Medical Journal published “Efficacy Analysis of Acupuncture Treatment for Various Deaf-mute Cases (1012 Cases),” which summarized the treatment outcomes as:
Deaf-mute group: 213 congenital cases, with an effective rate of 89.2%, 190 effective cases, and 65 cured, cure rate 30.5%
Single deaf group: 38 congenital cases, 35 effective, effective rate 92%, cured 14 cases, cure rate 37%.
Even today, with advanced medical knowledge, these figures remain unmatched.
However, not everyone was deceived in the chaotic times. In facing this “anti-intellectual and anti-science” academic campaign, Professor Liu Ruihua, founder of Chinese otolaryngology, openly raised doubts at an academic meeting:
“How can damaged or underdeveloped inner ear hair cells regenerate?”
Academia is academia; faced with many experts’ doubts, the Ministry of Health decided to organize TCM doctors specializing in acupuncture from various TCM hospitals to compile the clinical outcomes of “acupuncture treatment for deafness” from 1955 to 1968.
In the final statistics of 1,001 deaf patients, none achieved clinical cure after acupuncture treatment.
It was thought that the absurd “acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” incident would end there, but unexpectedly, a special era arrived.
The third wave of “TCM acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” peak: Special period - 1990s
In 1971, Zhao Puyu, a medical orderly with the Mao Zedong Thought Medical Propaganda Team at a deaf-mute school in Liaoyuan City of the People’s Liberation Army, claimed a 100% acupuncture deafness cure rate. Under his treatments, many students born deaf were reportedly not only able to hear, speak and sing after acupuncture treatment, but some even joined the army.
The evidence verifying Zhao Puyu’s effectiveness was that these deaf-mute children could shout slogans after acupuncture treatment, fitting perfectly with the era’s grand practice of “man can conquer nature,” so no one dared question its authenticity.
Later, the Beijing Institute of Otolaryngology attempted to replicate Zhao Puyu’s method in over 1,000 deaf students, but concluded no one was helped.
Due to the political environment, the results of this replication were banned from publication until 1981.
So, the “acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” continued its “performance.”
In 1979, Changchun Deafness Hospital, based on “acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness,” “recreated” and proposed a new concept called “comprehensive therapy for deafness using TCM herbs combined with acupuncture, qigong, and acupoint injection.”
This added qigong and oral Chinese herbal medicine treatments for deaf-muteness on top of acupuncture.
What kind of TCM herbs did they use?
At that time, Gao Liuhua, attending physician at the Deafness Rehabilitation Center of the Beijing Bayi Film Studio Hospital, invented a technique called the “Gao Method,” the main treatment being oral intake of a self-made herbal medicine called “Ercong Chongji” (Ear Smart Granules).
Changchun Deafness Hospital, using the “Gao Method” combined with acupuncture, qigong, and acupoint massage, treated sensorineural deafness. It was claimed this method “enabled over ten thousand deaf individuals of different ages to regain hearing to varying degrees.”
Perhaps old Beijingers recall that the back of the Beijing City Traffic and Tourism Map featured advertisements stating “Gao Method has remarkable effects on treating deafness.”
But what about the actual efficacy? I will mention that at the end.
The infinitely harmful “TCM acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” movement
Professor Bu Xingkuan evaluated the harm of the “acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” movement in his article “How China’s Deafness Prevention Work Aligns with WHO”:
“For deaf children aged 0-6, if hearing aids or advanced cochlear implants are used early, followed by long-term speech training, deaf children can fully embark on a bright path of ‘deaf but not mute,’ living and studying almost like hearing people. However, some parents believing in these deceptive and ineffective treatments miss the best opportunity for rehabilitative training, pushing their children into a lifestyle relying mainly on sign language without speaking ability — a lifelong loss and great regret.”
“For example, a deaf child named Wang had bilateral hearing aids fitted at over two years old, but because the child refused to wear them, the parents spent over ten thousand yuan over 5 years seeking treatment elsewhere, with no result. When the child returned at age 8, the best rehabilitation window was lost, and the child had to enter a school for the deaf.”
“Another child, Liu, had parents who, due to lack of knowledge, found hearing aids too expensive and inconvenient, and were unwilling to carry out prolonged auditory and speech training, instead spending over 30,000 yuan on acupuncture and Chinese medicine treatment in Guangzhou for 3 years in the hope of an easy cure. In the end, the child still could not speak, tragically pushed into the mute crowd.”
Deng Yuancheng, the prominent expert in hearing rehabilitation and former director of the Beijing Tongren Hospital, affiliated with Peking University Health Science Center, also said:
“With full parental cooperation, children with residual hearing trained for two to three years, and children with severe hearing loss trained for five to six years, at least 30% of deaf children can join regular classes at elementary, middle, or high school. Many even attend university or study abroad later, and can fully integrate into society like normal people.”
The “Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) acupuncture treatment for deaf-muteness” campaign spanned several decades, and we do not know how many deaf-mute children completely lost the chance to live like normal people.
As an important symbol of TCM “modernization,” why was “deaf-muteness” specifically chosen as the clinical entry point at that time?
Picking the “soft targets” to squeeze for “TCM modernization”
Professor Deng Yuancheng put forward his views on “why TCM at that time chose deaf-muteness as the clinical entry point” instead of choosing, for example, eyes, external injuries, or the brain:
The etiology of “deaf-muteness” is very complex, with great uncertainty and room for ambiguous manipulation.
Even within deaf-muteness, irreversible deafness and reversible hearing loss present almost the same clinically.
Without modern diagnostic tools, it is very difficult to clearly determine, based on subjective judgment, whether the patient’s hearing can be restored, so a large degree of uncertainty exists, providing room for TCM intervention.
For example, the technique of the “Gao Therapy for Deaf-Muteness” invented by Gao Liuhua bases its claim of effective treatment mainly on “Electroacoustic Response Audiometry (ERA).”
The evaluation is based on the patient’s subjective audiometry results before and after treatment; for instance, if the patient had a hearing level of 95dB before treatment and could hear at 85dB after treatment, achieving a 10dB difference, Gao Liuhua would consider it effective.
However, clinically, a 10dB change is too subtle—99% of people cannot even perceive such a difference, so subjective evaluation is full of uncertainty and essentially lacks reference value.
Yet, this does not stop TCM from “telling its own story” with the data.
In contrast, for blind people, anyone can observe and judge whether there is eye injury or problems causing blindness, leaving no room for ambiguous manipulation.
The same reasoning applies to patients with limb injuries or brain damage. You will find that TCM never dares to get involved in these fields because clinically it is impossible to judge the condition based on such patients’ subjective descriptions. Without patients’ complaints, TCM cannot perform ambiguous operations using “clinical efficacy.”
I have also responded regarding the so-called “clinical efficacy” in TCM; if interested, you may read this Q&A—I’m not rehashing old issues.
Therefore, we cannot say that TCM “lacks modernization”—rather, TCM itself does not cherish the opportunities for “modernization.”
Absurdities like TCM’s “willow branch bone setting” will not occur again; having missed various “historical opportunities,” it is hard to say what the future holds for TCM.
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