Once, Dr. Li recalls, Mao sent him one of his sexual partners, a young woman who had come down with trichomonas vaginalis, which is sexually transmitted. Dr. Li treated her and several others who got the disease.
"The young women were proud to be infected," he writes. "The illness, transmitted by Mao, was a badge of honor, testimony to their close relations with the Chairman."
Mao himself showed no symptoms of the disease, though he was clearly a carrier of it, Dr. Li said. When Dr. Li suggested that he take some antibiotic to protect his sexual partners, Mao told Dr. Li: "If it's not hurting me, then it doesn't matter. Why are you getting so excited about it?"
Many of Mao's personal habits, as described by Dr. Li, seemed related to his godlike status. He lived virtually without regard to the clock, often sleeping during the day and, even when not sleeping, staying in his bed, remaining in his bathrobe for weeks at a time. He lived in rooms built near a swimming pool in Zhongnanhai and would often summon his closest advisers to see him well after midnight.
Mao never bathed or even washed his hands or face. Dr. Li says that during the day his bodyguards went into the room and wiped his body, his hands and his face with hot towels. He never brushed his teeth, which Dr. Li says were coated with a green patina. Mao's habit, shared by many peasants in China, was to wash his mouth in the morning with tea and then to eat the tea leaves. When, once, Dr. Li suggested to him that he should use a toothbrush, Mao's reply was, "A tiger never brushes his teeth."
