In reality Acupuncture are practiced medical treatments that are over 5,000 years old. Very basically, Acupuncture is the insertion of very fine needles, (sometimes in conjunction with electrical stimulus), on the body's surface, in order to influence physiological functioning of the body.
The first record of Acupuncture is found in the 4,700 year old Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine). This is said to be the oldest medical textbook in the world. It is said to have been written down from even earlier theories by Shen Nung, the father of Chinese Medicine. Shen Nung documented theories about circulation, pulse, and the heart over 4,000 years before European medicine had any concept about them.
As the basis of Acupuncture, Shen Nung theorized that the body had an energy force running throughout it. This energy force is known as Qi (roughly pronounced Chee). The Qi consists of all essential life activities which include the spiritual, emotional, mental and the physical aspects of life. A person's health is influenced by the flow of Qi in the body, in combination with the universal forces of Yin and Yang. If the flow of Qi is insufficient, unbalanced or interrupted, Yin and Yang become unbalanced, and illness may occur.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the inner workings of our bodies are seen as a delicate balance by the Chinese philosophical concepts of the yin and yang - two opposing, yet inseparable forces. This concept is best compared to our understanding of day and night, one continually becoming the other, depending on the other for definition. Nighttime grows out of daytime and slowly overtakes it. Then, as daytime approaches, the power of nighttime lessens until daytime takes over the night. This continuous and inevitable cycle is the same as the yin and yang phenomena of TCM. Health is achieved by maintaining harmony between opposing forces in the natural world, therefore, by keeping body in a "balanced state." Any disturbance of this natural equilibrium results in blockage to the flow of Qi and the onset of disease.
Qi travels throughout the body along "Meridians" or special pathways. Meridian, a word borrowed from geography which indicates a thin line joining a series of ordered points, is used by the Chinese as channels in which vital energy circulates throughout the body. The Meridians / Channels are the same on both sides of the body (paired). There are fourteen main meridians running vertically up and down the surface of the body. Out of these, there are twelve (12) main organ Meridians in each half of the body (remember they are in pairs), one assigned to each of the five major organs - “ the lung, liver, kidney, heart and stomach, the six bowels - “ the gallbladder, small intestine, large intestine, bladder, san jiao, and the heart protector. There are also two unpaired midline Meridians. The acupuncture points are specific locations where the Meridians come to the surface of the skin, and are easily accessible for "needling," Moxibustion, and Acupressure. The connections between them ensure that there is an even circulation of Qi, a balance between Yin and Yang. Any upset in the balance will result in natural calamities, in nature; and disease in humans.
Though the meridians cannot be seen with the human eye, research by Western doctors and scientists have verified that these channels, ranging from 20-50 millimicrons in diameter, carry an electro-magnetic field. When needles or pressure is applied to specific areas, they act as conductors from the external environment which replenish the body's energy that has been depleted by disease or injury.
Energy constantly flows up and down these pathways. When pathways become obstructed, deficient, excessive, or just unbalanced, Yin and Yang are said to be thrown out of balance; and causing illness. Acupuncture is said to restore the balance.
The Chinese believe that the practice of acupuncture began during the Stone Age where stone knives or other sharp edged tools, described by the Chinese character "Bian", were used to puncture and drain abscesses. The modern Chinese character "Bi", which represents a disease or pain, is almost certainly derived from the use of "Bian" stones for the treatment of painful complaints. Throughout time, these "Bian" stones were refined and replaced with metal needles. Dating back to 113 B.C., these metal needles took the form of the "Classical Nine Needles", comprising of an arrowhead needle for superficial pricking, a round needle for massaging, a blunt needle for palpating, a three edged needle for puncturing, a sword-like needle for draining abscesses, a sharp needle for rapid pricking and the most common one used today - “ the filliform needle for puncturing acupuncture points or painful areas of the body.
It is clear that the Chinese have developed a highly complex and sophisticated system of healing. Treatments are tailored specifically for the individual and through diagnostic principles and systems of Chinese Medicine; practitioners are able to evaluate the root of the imbalance and work to bring the body back to a harmonious state. Unlike Western medicine, which shuns disease by treating the symptoms at hand, the aspect which makes Traditional Chinese Medicine so powerful and successful is that it focuses on the healing the root and actual cause of the disease. With over 5,000 years of experience, it is no wonder that Traditional Chinese Medicine has been adopted within both Western and Eastern cultures to such a degree.
Acupuncturists can use as many as nine types of Acupuncture needles, though only six are commonly used today. These needles vary in length, width of shaft, and shape of head. Today, most needles are disposible. They are used once and disgarded in accordance with medical biohazard regulations and guidlines. There are a few different precise methods by which Acupuncturists insert needles. Points can be needled anywhere in the range of 15 degrees to 90 degrees relative to the skin surface, depending on the treatment called for. In most cases, a sensation, felt by the patient, is desired. This sensation, which is not pain, is called deqi (pronounced dah-chee).
Cupping is another type of treatment. This is a method of stimulating Acupuncture points by applying suction through a metal, wood or glass jar, in which a partial vacuum has been created. This technique produces blood congestion at the site, and therefore stimulates it. Cupping is used for low backache, sprains, soft tissue injuries, and helping relieve fluid from the lungs in chronic bronchitis.
One of the most popular alternatives to Acupuncture is Acupressure. This is simply Acupuncture without needles. Stimulation of the Acupuncture points is performed with the fingers or an instrument with a hard ball shaped head. Another variation of Acupressure is Reflexology (also called Zone Therapy). This is where the soles of the feet and the posterio-inferior regions of the ankle joints are stimulated. Many diseases of the internal organs can be treated in this manner.
Acupuncture in Modern Times
Acupuncture today enjoys what may be its greatest popularity to date. It is important to note that this popularity, however, is a fairly recent achievement of the medicine. In the early 20th century, China, as the rest of Asia, experienced a flood of Europeans and American influence. As early as the late 1890's the European germ theories of Koch, List, and Pasteur were starting to arrive in China, marking the beginning of Western medicine in the Far East. By 1912, acupuncture was in precipitous decline, barely able to counter this growth of biomedicine. At the same time, traditional Chinese medicine had gained a small hold in Europe and North America but was far from accepted, and by the beginning of the First World War, the art of acupuncture was close to cultural extinction in China.
Only a handful of background information is required to understand this sharp decline of acupuncture. What Europeans first introduced to China was not medicine or culture; it was a narcotic drug called opium. Designed to profit the Westerners who organized it, the opium trade grew exponentially throughout the 19th century, having appalling effects on Chinese society. It was a social horror, and it very aptly illustrated the subhuman status in which many Westerners held the Chinese as well as the creations of Chinese culture, including acupuncture. To add to the trauma, a famine in 1878-1879 left 9 million people in unimaginably horrifying conditions. There was no public sanitation, and open sewers and garbage-laden streets were the standard urban scene. It was in this atmosphere of decline, loss of self-determination, and inconceivable human suffering that the Republic of China was formed in 1911. China quickly developed a desire to modernize, and its people began to turn to Western medicine. Given this background information, it is not difficult to understand why the beginning of the 20th century was a devastating time for acupuncture, theoretically as well as practically. In the fall of 1915, an order was issued demanding that medical, pharmacy, and veterinary students meet the qualifications established by Western nations. By 1929, registration of traditional doctors was ceased, and an announcement was made by the Ministry of Health proposing the abolishment of traditional medicine altogether.
Though in rapid decline, not everyone stood for the disappearance of traditional Chinese medicine. In the 1920's a group of traditional practitioners formed the zhong yi ("Chinese medicine") movement seeking to salvage their medicine. Through this movement, the group attempted to create a force that could resist the enroachment of xi yi, "Western medicine." Though unsuccessful at the time, this movement laid the foundation for the reappearance and modernization of traditional medicine following the Second World War.
The resurgence of acupuncture in China after the Second World War had a relatively simply understood cause, namely "the greatest and most intractable public health problem of any nation in the world," as stated by the United Nations Relief Organization. Among the first tasks of the People's Republic was coming up with a way to provide health care for a huge society. China found itself with less than 40,000 Western physicians and approximately 500,000 disorganized and crudely trained traditional practitioners attempting to serve a population of a half billion people. Thus, the clear and pragmatic reason for the post-war promotion of traditional medicine: there was no other choice.
A compromise had to be reached. Conservative politicians saw traditional medicine as an aspect of Chinese culture to preserve against the onslaught of Western enroachment. Meanwhile, political modernists saw it as, at best, "a collection of empirical tricks, some of which might be useful" (UA, p. 52). With the help of a general feeling of preserving the essence of Chinese culture, traditional medicine was saved from abandonment or possible prohibition, but not without being scientifically modernized. And so, starting in the 1950's, traditional medical schools with standardized curricula were established to teach basic biomedical sciences, traditional pharmacotherapy, and acupuncture. It was then, too, that the zhong yi movement triumphantly re-emerged. For the first time in the 20th century, Chinese medicine had "a firm cultural position, a clear economic role, and a powerful political patron" (UA, p. 52).
Efforts to integrate Western and Chinese medicines continued through the 1950's with limited success. Having neither money nor prestige, traditional practitioners, who were not themselves united, feared eventual elimination. Furthermore, "popularization and expansion had further diluted what had never been a homogenous system" (UA, p. 53). Despite these drawbacks, the late 1950's did experience one of the most important developments of acupuncture, at least from the viewpoint of Western physicians. It is during this time that aggressive acupuncture techniques were developed and that acupuncture was first utilized as an anesthetic and analgesic during surgery.
When Westerners started flooding China after Nixon's visit, it was these techniques they were shown. They brought these back to the West, where they were popularized and became a primary focus for research. (UA, p. 53)Another factor that greatly contributed to the westward migration of acupuncture appeared in the 1970's in the form of acupuncture programs sponsored by the World Health Organization. Physicians from many countries came to China to take advantage of these programs, and since the early 1980's many similar programs have been established for non-physician acupuncturists as well. Today, affiliations exist between many Western acupuncture schools and traditional medical schools in China, allowing students to travel abroad to partake in pre- and post-graduation programs. In the 1980's by the so-called "three roads" policy allowed for the individual development of traditional medicine, biomedicine, and their combination, integrated medicine. Since then, more than 2000 Chinese physicians have graduated with a thorough training in both traditional and Western medicine.
With this tidbit on the history of acupuncture, it is clear that this medicinal art is indeed one of the oldest and most complex that exists, based on ideas and theories formulated over hundreds of years. Acupuncture has come a long way since its origins and has won an uphill battle against time, misunderstanding, and criticism to gain the great popularity that it enjoys today. "Traditional Chinese medicine offers a comprehensive, integrated and well-tested theory: its application in acupuncture, which is inexpensive, non-invasive, safe and effective, is surely a key form of treatment for the future" (Acupuncture, p. 143).
* McCann, Henry
References
Acupuncture Theory, a Brief Introduction, Jeffrey A. Singer
History of Acupuncture, Jon Fishman
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