Hangzhou, June 24 - A traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who never held a doctor's license is facing charges after his patient died following a snake bite in east China's Zhejiang Province.Investigations by police and doctors at a hospital in Xiaoshan found practitioner He Ling administered treatment which had toxic side effects to his patient.Authorities also say the patient, a villager surnamed Yu, wasted valuable time by not getting modern medical help after she was bitten on a hillside in September 2006.Yu's feet swelled that night and she later visited He Ling with her husband, as the medicine man said he had a good reputation among other villagers for treating such bites.He Ling claimed he had never failed and had 40 years' experience. Aged in his 60s, he hails from a herbalist family and said he was confident it was a pallas pit viper bite.He used cupping treatment to free the venom, pressed some herbs on Yu's wound, and prescribed an oral medicine he said was a family secret and not found in any books.The couple were told the medicine was a sacred recipe handed down through generations of his family and had never been recorded in any traditional medicine books.Yu returned to the clinic every three days and was given medicine that was never weighed but measured out by hand, her widowed husband said.About a month later, Yu's condition worsened and her family took her to the Xiaoshan No.1 People's Hospital. She died eight days later.The hospital ruled her caused of death as being by medicine which triggered or delayed the venom and caused acute liver failure.Outraged family remembers went to He's house and argued, and he phoned the police. He later confessed he never expected to fail.The practitioner said he had specialized in snakebite treatment since his 20s, but found the number of clients decreased over the years as people favored hospitals .Doctors at Xiaoshan No.1 Hospital studied Yu's death and ruled some elements in He Ling's recipe could cause liver damage, while the dosage also seemed too high.More importantly, doctors said, was the time Yu wasted by not seeking proper treatment from a hospital.