The Chinese traditional medicine secret prescriptions will be tested in Shangai, for the first time in the country, to verify their effectiveness in the treatment of drug addiction, informed the local newspaper Jiefang Ribao.

The remedies with which will be experienced were developed by Chinese doctors in the middle of the XIX century, to restrain the addiction to British opium that, at that time, affected practically all the country's families.

The treatment, which will last between three and six months, hopes to help drug-dependants not to return to its addiction, according to the specialists responsible for the project.

From the days of the opium wars (first such war exploded in 1841), different doctors developed remedies against drug addiction, which were maintained through generations as family secrets.

One of those remedies which will be proven is the one called "Jitai tablet", developed by doctor Zen Jitai, famous in the second third of the XIX century, and which includes "Corydalis" (a medicinal plant of the Eastern province of Zhejiang, near Shangai), red Salvia roots, pearls' dust and the tubercle known as Ginseng .

According to non-officials carried out tests with these tablets, it seems that they can release from drug addiction in seven days, patients who begin to be or who are "moderately" hooked to heroin, according to a disciplinary center in Shanghai that has already used them.

Chinese investigators already have already developed medicines based on the prescription of Zen Jitai to produce alternatives to stronger narcotic products, such as methadone, that are usually used in this type of treatments, revealed Shen Pingniang, director of the Chinese Traditional Medicine Research center.

Contrary to methadone, only provided under medical prescription, the "tablet of Jitai" will be available in all pharmacies, so that the drug-addict or moderate drug users in their beginnings can treat themselves at house, indicated the official press.

In addition proposals are underway to apply the Chinese traditional medicine in cocaine addicts, according to information assured to the newspaper by a professor of the University of Harvard 's School of Medicine .