Acupuncture History

Written by The Blue Heron Clinic

Acupuncture has a detailed recorded history of approximately 2,000 years, but some authorities claim that it may have been practiced in China for over five thousand years.

Acupuncture's origins in China are uncertain with experts putting it's origins sometime between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Many Chinese Historians believe that acupuncture may have originated some time during the Stone Age when stone knives and edged tools were used to puncture and drain infections.  One explanation is that these methods were used in ancient times by soldiers wounded in battle by arrows were cured of chronic afflictions that were otherwise untreated, and there are variations on this idea.

Tracing Chinese Acupuncture back as far back as the Stone Age, there are many examples of early attempts or sharpened stones.  In 1963 a bian stone was found in Duolun County, Inner Mongolia, China pushing the origins of acupuncture into the Neolithic age.  Hieroglyphs and pictographs have been found dating from the Shang Dynasty (1600-1100 BCE) which suggest that acupuncture was practiced along with moxibustion

Traditional Chinese Medidine

The initial sections of the Nei Ching Su Wen entail a conversation between the Yellow Emperor, Huang Ti, and his Minister, Ch'i Pai. This dialogue lays down the philosophical foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and makes the Nei Ching Su Wen more of a discourse on health and disease rather than a medical textbook.

Compared to early Greek Medical texts the Nei Ching Su Wen is timeless and deals more or less exclusively with philosophical concepts, many of which seem to be as significant today as they were over 2,000 years ago.

The Western Medical doctor will observe the facts before him and utilize the contemporary physiological theories to clarify them. Chinese medicine is based on a somewhat wider world view, which is described in the Nei Ching Su Wen, and these ideas are woven into a comprehensive system based on a philosophy which is somewhat different from that of modern Western medicine.

Yin and Yang are opposite aspects of the material world. Like night and day they are interdependent, and the existence of one end of the spectrum presupposes the existence of the other aspect; i.e. Yin is necessary for Yang to exist, and vice versa. At first the idea of Yin and Yang seems very simplistic; it is not, it describes the fundamental fluctuating balance of nature. A modern concept that pre-supposes the existence of Yin and Yang is ecology, one of the main principles of which is that the forces of the environment must be in a fluctuating balance.

The number five is also very important to Chinese thought. For example, there are five notes in the musical scale, five tastes for food and five elements in the physical world (earth, fire, water, wood and metal). The five elements are not just atomic constituents of matter, they have also been described as the five transitional stages of all physical materials. It is these philosophical ideas that form the basis of much of the discussion in the Nei Ching Su Wen.

Acupuncture Today - Growing acceptance by the medical community

The growing acceptance of Acupuncture by modern medicine and western culture can be seen in many of our hospitals and private medical practices.

Private Acupuncture clinics, acupuncture technique used by medical doctors, physiotherapists and chiropractors, in post chemotherapy recovery, drug addiction recovery, infertility, depression, pain - the list is almost endless.

The growing trend of acupuncture use outside of the traditional clinic is an encouraging step on the path to integrating this holistic form of medicine into our western culture and mindset.