For more than five thousand years Chinese doctors have used
needles to fight illness. This kind of medicine is called acupuncture. The
doctor studies the sick person carefully. Then he puts needles into that
person’s body at the right places for his illness. Chinese doctors believe that
they can control the body’s natural forces in this way. At first, doctors in the
West thought that this was just another kind of magic. Recently, however, they
have found out that it is possible to cure many illnesses like this because the
needles help the body to produce its own "medicines". In this way the body cures
itself. Nowadays doctors can do a lot of wonderful things. They
can use thousands of medicines. They can give you pills and injections. They can
even give you mechanical legs or a new heart. Sometimes modem medicine works
like magic. But there are still a lot of illnesses that drags and machines
cannot cure completely. Medicine is not only a science; it is an art, too. And
in the art of medicine, the mind is very important. You will not have a healthy
body unless you have a healthy mind. In ancient China, the way
of using needles to fight illness is called (46) .
By using needles, the doctors Can control the body’s (47)
to cure many illnesses. Drags and (48)
can not cure all the illnesses. Medicine is not only a
science, but also (49) . A (50)
is also a cure for illness.