66-year-old villager Jiang Musheng demonstrates the swallowing of a live frogs in Huangxi village in east China's Jiangxi Province on Monday, 4 June 2007. [Photo: jxnews.com.cn]

A 66-year-old man who has eaten live tree frogs and mice for forty years, believes his unusual "hobby" is good for the health.

Jiangnan City Daily Monday reported that Jiang Musheng, a villager living in Huangxi village in east China's Jiangxi Province, believes an earlier sickness was cured by unremittingly swallowing live mice and tree frogs.

The reporter was even lucky enough to witness Jiang swallowing one of the unfortunate frogs.

Jiang told the reporter that when he was 26 years old he used to suffer from regular back pain, coughing and stomach pains.

At that time, an old man told him that swallowing live tree frogs could improve his health.

Initially, Jiang was sceptical and hesitated to swallow the live amphibians he could see jumping all around him.

However, after a demonstration by the old man, Jiang did eat two tree frogs, but says he didn't feel uncomfortable. After continuously swallowing live frogs for a month, he did surprisingly find that his lumbago and cough had disappeared.

Since that first hesitant step, Jiang has gained considerably in strength, and today is an extremely healthy specimen.

Jiang also began swallowing live rats after his successful experience with frogs. As the years have rolled by, swallowing live mice and frogs has became a "special" hobby of his. He even boasts that he has be known to swallow more than 20 mice in a single day!