Curing the 'disease from history'

More than 70 years after World War II, elderly people in villages in East China may at last find relief from the effects of Japanese biological weapons. Zhao Xu reports.

Sitting in the dark in his small house, with a colorful painting of the God of Fortune hanging on the wall, Wei Hongfu was as immobile as the wooden beams that have supported his roof for the past 40 years.

"New ulcers and old scars - they never heal and probably never will," he said, rolling up his pants legs. Creeping across the lower part of both legs was a sprawling, grotesque, black and brown bulge, veined by pinkish flesh that resembled a spider's legs. Underneath it were bubbles of pus that seemed never to recede. "Sometimes, it relents for a period of time, only to make a vehement comeback and invade more (of my legs)," he said.