The stomach-churning moment Chinese patient had 42 PEARLS removed from his body after believing bogus doctor could cure his back pain

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Zou Feng was told of doctor supposedly specialising in ancient medicine

Chinese man, 61, visited him in 2011 and was told pearls were needed

He inserted the pearls under Feng's skin and then sewed up the cuts

But Feng had more pain and went to a hospital to get pearls removed



This is the stomach-churning moment a hospital patient had 42 pearls removed from his body after believing a bogus doctor’s claims that inserting them could cure his back pain.

Zou Feng, of Hunan province, China, said that after he had complained of suffering from a bad back, a neighbour had told him of the doctor who was supposedly an expert in ancient medicine.

The 61-year-old man travelled to visit the doctor in 2011 and was told his case was so specific that it could only be healed by placing pearls under his skin.

Operation: Zou Feng had to have 42 pearls removed from his body after they were inserted by a bogus doctor Misled: Mr Feng said that after he had complained of suffering from a bad back, a neighbour had told him of the doctor who was supposedly an expert in ancient medicine Inside: A doctor shows the pearls on the X-ray photos of the 61-year-old patient at a hospital in China

Mr Feng said: ‘He said he would make a small cut, insert the pearls under the skin and then sew up the cut - leaving the pearls inside my body.

‘Other people told me that his methods worked and so I wanted to give it a try, and I have to say that initially I did feel better after he inserted 42 pearls into my body.

‘But I then started getting another problem that I'd never had before and was finding it difficult to walk - all my joints ached instead of just my back.

‘I went to try and find the doctor who had sold me the pearls and the treatment but he was not around any longer. I was told he had moved to another area. So I went to a conventional hospital.’

Help: Mr Feng said he had filed a medical malpractice case but discovered the doctor was not registered

Treatment: The 61-year-old travelled to visit the bogus doctor in 2011 and was told his case was so specific that it could only be healed by placing pearls under his skin

Dr Sying Wan, who operated on Mr Feng at Nianlun Orthopaedics Hospital in Changsha, Hunan, to remove the pearls, said: ‘I have never seen anything like it before.



'[The doctor] said he would make a small cut, insert the pearls under the skin and then sew up the cut - leaving the pearls inside my body' Zou Feng, patient

'I had no idea what the objects were when we did the X-ray, but when we asked him he explained how they had come there

‘Everywhere that the pearls had been inserted it had caused the bone to die off, including around his hip joint, which is now not possible to save.

‘We have managed to remove all of the pearls, but the man's skeleton has been badly affected, and he will need at the very least a hip replacement surgery.’