A doctor in Beijing is offering a reward to any traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who can prove the effectiveness of pregnancy pulse check, a popular technique used to determine a woman's pregnancy featured in Chinese flicks.

Ning Fanggang, a physician at the Beijing Jishuitan Hospital said he will reward 50,000 yuan, or US$8,160 to whoever proves the efficacy of checking a woman's pulse in order to determine if she is pregnant or not.

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Ning announced his offer over his micro blog saying that he would organize a test where a group of women, some of whom have been confirmed to be pregnant, will be checked using the traditional pulse check portrayed in Chinese movies and television shows.

"If a doctor is successful, I will never state that traditional Chinese medicine is a fake science," Ning declared in a statement citing that only senior doctors from reputable hospitals would be qualified to join.

Catching the public's attention, the reward had been doubled after some netizens who seem to want to prove the same thing donated money over the Internet, bringing the pot money to 100,000 yuan.

Through the Chinese social media, Ning's post had ignited an online debate on the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine.

"Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years and cured countless people, so how can it be a fake science? Traditional Chinese medicine and modern medical science are complementary," a netizen posted.

In spite of this, several traditional medicine doctors have decided to take on the challenge including Beijing University of Chinese Medicine's Yang Zhen who explained that a pregnant woman's blood vessels become enlarged as the volume of blood that flows through them increase.

This, according to Yang, leads to a faster blood flow resulting in a faster heartbeat or pulse.

Meanwhile, Zhu Qingwen, a practitioner of both traditional and modern medicine at the same institution cited that a doctor's proficiency in using the technique is the main determinant of the effectiveness of a pregnancy pulse check.

TagsPregnancy, pulse check, modern medicine, pregnant woman, pulse