culture

The means of Koryo therapy, traditional Korean therapy, including needles, moxa and cupping glass are so handy that the treatment is unaffected by any conditions and circumstances, while the therapy has no harmful effects on the human body but remarkable curative effects.

Therefore, Koryo therapy takes a major share of the preventive and curative treatment in the DPRK and the range of its application is getting wider in the clinical practice.

But it is not easy to be well versed in the traditional therapy.

In acupuncture, for instance, the depth and direction of insertion of needles, the extent of turning needles after insertion and the method of plugging and opening the acupuncture holes after plucking out needles are different according to the characters of diseases and physical constitutions of patients. 

Ri Ae Ryong, doctor of the Koryo medical department of the Mangyongdae District Hospital in Pyongyang, has practised the traditional therapy for over 40 years.

She began to work as doctor in a curative and preventive institution after graduating from Pyongyang University of Medical Sciences in her twenties. She had been interested in Koryo therapy during her university days and keenly felt the advantages of it in practice.

She cultivated her skills as she stuck needles and applied moxa to her body to confirm the curative effects and in that course she produced amazing effects by dint of Koyo therapies in the treatment of the diseases which are often treated with Western medicines.

Ri Ae Ryong has marvellous skills in acupuncture and moxibustion.

She acquired profound knowledge of the therapies as she made an in-depth study of many Koryo therapies, which ancestors created and developed for thousands of years, along with scientific data clarified by modern medicine, and found out original Koryo therapies for the diseases which are difficult to cure with Western medicines.

In the past decades of devotion, Ri brought back to health many patients with such incurable diseases as cerebral thrombosis, liver cirrhosis, ischemic heart disease and disorders of different nervous systems. 

Some people attribute her excellent treatment methods to her innate gift but medical workers, who worked with her for a long time, and many patients, who received treatment from her, ascribe her success to her ardent love for human beings and her beautiful mind of regarding pain of patients as her own. 

Patients affectionately call her as a “doctor of motherly affection” as she takes it for granted to skip sleep, meals and rest for patients and visits her patients even if she is ill. 

She keeps over ten thick notebooks recording the words of thanks from many people, who were completely recovered and regained the joy of life, and congratulatory messages are sent to her mobile phone on significant days.  

In their messages, people lavished praise on Ri, calling her as “the most renowned doctor”, “erudite Koryo medical worker” and “queen of moxibustion”.

As she has made a great contribution to the treatment of patients and the development of Koryo medicine, she attended national meetings, exhibitions, seminars, international symposiums on medical sciences and other events on several occasions and her moxibustion and acupuncture therapies were inscribed on the list of national intangible cultural heritage.

“The socialism of our country is really a good system that regards human life as the most precious thing. I only tried to stay faithful to my duty as a member of this society,” says Ri Ae Ryong, an authority of the Koryo medical circles who remains devoted to medical treatment even in the twilight years of her life, basking in wide public praise.