Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.
Acupuncture is a Chinese method of (26) .............. illnesses by inserting needles into certain points of the body. The idea is that this restores the natural balance of energy, which is disturbed when a person is ill. The origins of this therapy have been traced (27) .............. over five thousand year, but it only began to be accepted in the West' the 1970s.
In 1971, James Reston, a well-known journalist from the New York Times, was visiting China when he developed appendicitis. He was operated on in a hospital in Peking, where the doctors used acupuncture to (28) .............. his pain. Reston was surprised at how effective it was, and wrote about it in an article for the newspaper.
Soon afterwards, Chairman Mao Tse-tung invited a group of (29) .............. Western doctors over to China to witness for themselves that acupuncture worked. They were accompanied by television crews, and soon viewers in the West were watching operations being carried out on patients with acupuncture needle sticking out of them. The patients felt (30) .............. pain. The Western experts were a little embarrassed at what they saw, because they had previously ridiculed idea that patients could be treated with needles. Now they had to admit that acupuncture actually worked.