Out on a limb for Chinese medicine

When American doctors examined Kumari Wright's broken right arm, they wanted to amputate the limb after discovering she also had a cancerous growth.

But the patient - a natural medicine practitioner - rejected the advice and put her faith instead in traditional Chinese medicine.

Dr Wright and her husband, Ken, who also has a doctorate in natural medicine, arrived in Guangzhou a month ago. She says the treatment she received from Cheng Jianhua at the Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine is already taking effect.

'Before I came, I was in tremendous pain. I used to scream. I looked like a mental case,' she says, sitting on a sofa in her hotel suite. Her swollen arm is painted black with Chinese herbs.

'Since the Chinese doctor started treating me, I am 85 per cent better. I can sleep. Before, I was tossing around. The swelling came down, the tumour size stabilised.'

Dr Wright's tribulations started after she took up making artificial trees last April. The hobby required she do long stretches of continuous cutting.