We Can Learn from History

   Acupuncture; history notes

 

                Are we too superior in our conceits to recognize the ability we ought to see in others?

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                I write here in hope that we may more enjoy the fruits of acupuncture. The French and Russians began to enjoy those fruits of the acupuncture part of Chinese Health Care many years ago. Our AMA has not pointed us to a legal road to making acupuncture an active part of our health care system. It  that seems finding and setting up that road is up us, we the people. 

               

                 The people of some countries have struggled a bit with deciding how to regulate acupuncture, bur most have allowed it legal practice. Russian elites have demanded it. Chinese demand that extensive education and careful oversight of the the practice be established and maintained. European countries have demanded that all acupuncturists be medical doctors as well. Some of them have neglected the supervision of its teaching.

 

                Some knowledge of the history of acupuncture may prove of help to to us. Allow me to pass on some of that history which have begun to learn.

 
Before 900 AD                

                A medical school was established in China during the Tang dynasty before 900 AD. Its name, translated to English can be, the Imperial Institute of Physicians. The college trained 350 students at a time in herbal medicine and surgery. Herbal medicine seems to have been the more important part of the instruction. Surgery was mainly limited to fractures, skin diseases, and wounds.

 
600 AD                

Tang emperors also organized the nation's doctors into the grand Medical Service. It will be great when we can organize our healthcare to include the best of the kinds available in other countries. The development of organized healthcare in China began at least as early as 600 AD. Certainly we ought to be able to improve and extend our healthcare in the near future.

 
About 700 AD             

    Chinese health care was regulated and delivery improved beginning in about 700 AD. Prospective doctors underwent rigorous examinations. Future doctors were examined on their familiarity with the principles of acupuncture and its diagnosis and techniques, also on the best written works. 

 

                Chinese controlled the quality of their health care then and now. There were and are laws prohibiting the practice of healthcare and cure without licenses.

 

                    

According to surviving healthcare books and documents from as far back as the Tang, a variety of maladies were treated. their practice dealt with tuberculosis, goiter, rickets, beriberi, dropsy, Cholera, dysentery, measles, smallpox, and leprosy.

As we begin to use our choice of the very best European and Asiatic healthcare, we can learn from and adopt some of their methods of  control and safety. There  is much of value we can learn if we would. We can learn to benefit from acupuncture as have the French, and Russians, and others. Our healthcare professionals have much to teach others.

Let's get back to the Tang dynasty way of dealing with acupuncture. On the second day of their examinations was a demonstration of one's effectiveness of dealing with the needles of acupuncture. A great deal more of Chinese history is becoming available these days and the Chinese share share much of their modern healthcare understanding, knowledge, and techniques. We can learn from them and help them to learn from us.

 Acupuncture points

                In 1027 AD the sung dynasty emperor, Je Tsug ordered Wang Wei, a noted acupuncturist and sculpture to cast two hollow figures with the acupuncture points points marked by their names and small holes. The figures were covered with wax and filled with water. These figures were used to train and test students. Similar figures are used by students and teachers and students today, Since the Sung dynasty only about a dozen points have been changed, added, or deleted. I understands that a total of about 365 points are used today. For the interested person there is much historic and present day information available online.

 
 Chaing Kai-shek              

 During the reign of Chaing Kai-shek, western medicine was extolled and acupuncture was repressed and schools closed. Still, the Chinese people looked to their traditional medicine. Thousands were killed by quacks and the untrained in the use of traditional medicine. Many came to doubt their ''medicine."

When the communist consolidated power acupuncturists began to use the needles where they were most likely to be used correctly, on themselves. A graduate from their schools may have pricked himself ten thousand times refining his skills and touch until teachers and testers were sure of his ability. There remained much to be learned of diagnosis.  

 

                Now, acupuncture has been modernized by Chinese doctors also trained in western medicine. Acupuncture is used extensively. Electronic needles are used, and their use has moved into most modern Chinese medicine. 

 "Head Zones"

                In 1893 Sir Henry Head, a British nerve specialist, noticed that some patients suffering from diseased gallbladders and kidneys felt pain in parts of the body far from from the stricken organs. The pain was external, on the surface of the skin, and a specific disease always resulted in pain from the same place. Think of the diagnostic possibilities, Some wise doctors have been trained in "Head Zones."

German doctors soon began to use their knowledge of "Head Zones" to deaden areas of the skin to relieve pain in internal organs. Does that remind you of anything in particular?

 

                Some American doctors add to this practice by injecting these surface areas with chemical Anesthesia to get the same result. American doctors were amazed to find that their injections in Head Zones not only relieved pain, but in many cases cure diseases. Head Zones have been too largely forgotten, but there is still a bit of ongoing work being done in the U.S. and elsewhere. 

 

            By the way, the areas of the skin Dr. Head linked with the gallbladder and kidneys are the same ones acupuncturists use today and the same ones they have used for many hundreds of years.

 

                I believe that we can benefit from careful training of good acupuncture practitioners in the U.S. I believe we would benefit even more by good appropriate oversight of those practitioners and of all physicians and health practitioners. For developing appropriate training of acupuncturists in the U.S. we could increase exchange of healthcare practitioners between China and America.

 

                

            Thank you for reading

 

 

                                                                                                RCS