Acupuncture Chinese Medicine Introduce

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is one of the major branches of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The first record of acupuncture is found in the 4,700 year old Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine), which is said to be the oldest medical textbook in the world.


Apuncture was brought to Europe as far back as 1671 by French Jesuit priests. In the United States, acupuncture was not widely known until 1971, when the New York Times' James Reston developed appendicitis during Nixon's Chinese trip. At the Anti-Imperialist Hospital in Beijing, the Chinese doctors applied acupuncture to produce anesthesia for his appendectomy surgery and to relieve his postoperative pain after the appendectomy treatment. In 1973, The AMA Council of Scientific Affairs declares acupuncture an experimental medical procedure.

By 1993, the U.S. FDA estimated that Americans made 9 to 12 million visits per year to acupuncture practitioners and spent as much as $500 million on acupuncture treatments. On March 29, 1996, the U.S. FDA bestowed the Class II status of "medical tools" to acupuncture needles. Moreover, the U.S. FDA ruling indicates that acupuncture is a safe and effective medical treatment. The number of licensed acupuncturists has increased from 5,525 in the fall of 1992 to 14,228 in the fall of 2000 in the U.S.

Traditional Chinese medicine has mapped more than 2,000 acupuncture points on the human body, which connect with 12 main and 8 secondary pathways called meridians. These meridians conduct energy, or Qi flow between the surface of the body and internal organs.





The main meridians are classified into two opposing categories: Yin meridians and Yang meridians. Yin meridians link to the Yin organs (usually solid organs), and Yang meridians to the Yang organs (usually hollow organs). Yin and Yang meridians form a complex network, guiding and regulating a proper Qi flow through the whole body.

A healthy individual means that Qi circulates fluently in the meridian networks, thus promotes and maintains the Yin-Yang balance and the organ harmony. Diseases occur when the meridians are blocked and Qi flow is disturbed or diminished. The diseased conditions are expected to be restored by manipulating the involved meridians, using acupuncture (i.e., needling) and other healing methods such as acupressure and moxibustion. One of the unique functions of acu-points is bi-directional regulation, which means that stimulating a same point can restore two distinctive opposite diseased conditions e.g., over-function and under-function of the offended organs.

There are typically two methods to produce the acupuncture stimulations: classical and electrical acupuncture. Classical acupuncture is performed by manual needling, which requires the practitioner of not only the professional handling skills, but also the insightful mind focus. Electrical acupuncture is to apply certain pattern of fine electrical pulses wiring to the needle handles after manual needling is initiated.