Chinese version but a translation from English and that substantial parts of the original Chinese manuscript were cut by the editor, Anne Thurston. Historian Mobo Gao wonders to what extent the English version of the book was written by Li himself. In the Chinese version, claims such as that the memoirs were based on Li's diaries, that Li was the best doctor in China, and that Li could recall Mao's words verbatim are absent. Absent in the Chinese version are also claims about Mao's womanizing behaviour spreading venereal disease, statements like "I [Mao] wash myself inside the bodies of my women" or Mao was "devoid of human feelings", as well as some of Thurston's notes. Gao notes that such omissions are an indication that these outrageous claims would've been appealing to Western readers, however they couldn't be included in the Chinese version because they would've been seen as obviously false to Chinese insiders. Other outrageous claims, such as "Deng Xiaoping made a nurse pregnant and the nurse was forced to have an abortion", were omitted for political reasons and also because the publisher knew that the Chinese readers couldn't be fooled so easily with such an unsubstantiated claim. Lin, Xu and Wu rebuttal In 1995, a Chinese language book was published in Hong Kong, entitled Lishi de Zhenshi: Mao Zedong Shenbian Gongzuo Renyuan de Zhengyan (meaning The Truth of History: Testimony of the personnel who had worked with Mao Zedong). It was written by three people who had known Mao personally: his personal secretary Lin Ke, his personal doctor from 1953 to 1957, Xu Tao and his chief nurse from 1953 to 1974, Wu Xujun. They argued that Li did not only not know Mao very well, but that he presented an inaccurate picture of him in his book. The trio disproved Li's claim that he had been Mao's personal physician in 1954, by presenting copies of a document from Mao's medical record showing that Li only took on the responsibility for caring for Mao on 3 June 1957. Wu goes on to argue that whilst much of Li's memoir is devoted to talking about Mao in the period between 1954 and 1957, Li was not his general practitioner during this period, and therefore would not have had access to the personal information that he claimed. Lin, Xu and Wu also criticise a number of Li's other claims as being