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No Psychiatry. Patient care frequently combines the oldest and newest in Chinese medicine. The traditionalist practitioners are often asked to deal with ailments that appear to be psychosomatic (psychiatry as practiced in the West seems to have no counterpart in China today). Acupuncturists and Western-style physicians practice side by side, and there has been much experimentation with acupuncture as an anaesthetic. White recalls being asked whether Americans could help formulate a scientific explanation of acupuncture's pain-killing qualities.
"For their problems," says Dimond, "they have made superb solutions—understanding, of course, that they are willing to give up personal independence." China has not, to be sure, produced a medical Utopia, and conditions may be different in parts of the country as yet unseen by Americans. But only 25 years ago the principal causes of death in China were malnutrition and infectious diseases—the marks of a poor and medically backward society. Adequate diet and vigorous public health measures have changed that. Respiratory ailments remain a major problem because the Chinese are heavy smokers; the authorities have done little to discourage the habit. As more and more Chinese survive into adulthood, many of them are dying of cancer and heart disease, the same illnesses that kill the majority of Americans.