A Concise Overview of the Development of Chinese Acupuncture
The history of Chinese Medicine begins in remote antiquity, with the Xia Dynasty (2220 – 1700BC) (Dong p. 8). At this time China entered into a slave society and the power of this new slave labour allowed social development and progress to forge ahead much faster than it was previously able to. Some of the advancements were that people started using fire domestically and also for the relief of pain, that they were making clothes to protect themselves from the climate, and that they began living in small, secure, sheltered communities (Zhiya, Yanchi, Ruifu and Lianrong p. 15-19). These peoples also developed skills in using ‘stone knives and scrapers to incise an abscess, drain pus and let blood out for therapeutic purposes’, and they discovered that symptoms of injury were relieved by specific positioning of sharp stones on the body which lead to the invention of the bian stone, the first acupuncture tool (Cheng p. 1; Dong p. 13). Around 2000BC, due to technical improvements in stone tool manufacturing, the bian stone became a specialised medical instrument for uses such as qi regulation (Cheng p. 1-2). Thus, one of the key developments in this era was the birth of the field of Chinese medicine.
By the Shang Dynasty (1700 – 1100BC) people had developed the theory of Yin-Yang based on observations that disharmony in the environment affects the body and can cause disease (Dong p. 13). The earliest evidence that acupuncture was practiced in China comes from remote antiquity, specifically the Shang Dynasty, from which written evidence of acupuncture has been found on bone and tortoise shell (Cheng p. 2). Archaeologists have also revealed evidence of the importance that the people of the Shang Dynasty placed on public health, with the discovery of sewage pipes, communal wells, and hieroglyphs depicting the importance of personal hygiene (Zhiya et al. p. 15-19).
A book called The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty contains evidence of the earliest medical system in China existing during the Zhou Dynasties 1100 – 2221BC (Zhiya et al. p. 15-19), in which physicians were sub-categorised as chief physicians, food physicians, internal disease physicians and veterinarians (Dong p. 14).
Around 541BC, in investigating the cause of disease, Yi He, a famous Shang physician, developed the idea of the six types of Qi that could cause disease: Yin, Yang, Wind, Rain, Darkness and Brightness (Dong p. 13).
During the Warring States Period (476 – 221BC) China underwent a social transition from a slave society to a feudal society (Cheng p. 2). According to the Advanced Textbook on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology Vol. 1, the social upheaval that took place in this time created ‘an intellectual stratum’ that allowed the upper-class time and freedom enough to pursue philosophical and scientific questions (p. 21).
In acupuncture during the Warring States Period, as iron became more widely used, metal needles gradually replaced the bian stone (Cheng p. 2).
During the 3rd Century BC the most influential Chinese medical text was produced; it was called Huang Di Nei Jing or Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, and it provided the theoretical basis on which all traditional Chinese medicine was to be built (Dong p. 17). It was a summation of all of China’s medical knowledge, theory and practice to that date, and advocated moxibustion and acupuncture as essential therapeutic techniques. (Cheng p. 2). It was a book of philosophy, anatomy and physiology, pathology, diagnostic methods, and prevention and treatments (Xue p. 45-49). It applied Yin-Yang to explain physiological functions, it summed up the five Zang and six Fu organs using the Five Elements theory, it emphasised treating the body as a whole being, and it theorised on the twelve regular meridians and eight extra meridians (Dong p. 18-20).
At the beginning of the Christian era the four distinct civilisations of China, India, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, which represented four distinct disease pools, started gradually converging, through cross-cultural exchange via ships and the Silk Road. So, it was the trade routes that facilitated the convergence of the four pools by about AD1200 (McNeill p. 94-160).
The medical milestone of the Han Dynasty (206BC – AD220) was Zhang Zhong Jing’s book, Treaties of Cold Injury and Miscellaneous Diseases (196 – 204BC) (Xue p. 45-49). This book stressed the importance of combining acupuncture with medicinal herbs (Cheng p. 3). Zhang Ji saw that many doctors were irresponsible or poorly skilled and so he wrote his book to provide theory, methodology, formulas and pharmacy, and ultimately his text ended up providing the basis for clinical medicine. Treaties of Cold Injury and Miscellaneous Diseases sets out the principles for diagnosing disease based on an holistic approach to signs and symptoms presented by a patient, which is still used today (Xue p. 45-49; Dong p. 22).
From 265 to 581 war, chaos and turmoil prevailed, thus encouraging the Chinese people to practice acupuncture because of its effectiveness and convenience. To help promote general medical knowledge in this tumultuous period, Ge Hong wrote Prescriptions of Emergencies (Cheng p. 4).
In the period of the Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties (265 – 959), China’s feudal society was at its zenith, bringing about rapid advancement in the area of medicine. Historic medical texts were revised and annotated. The establishment of different branches of medicine occurred during the Sui Dynasty, separating acupuncture into a field of its own (Dong p. 26; Cheng p. 4). The landmark book A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Huang Fu Mi was written during the Jin Dynasty (265 – 420). Compiled from the classic texts, Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor and Canon of Acupuncture and Essential of Points, it is an extensive work comprising 12 volumes and including 349 acupuncture points, and proved very influential in furthering the development of acupuncture (Dong p. 31).
Written in the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) by famous physician Sun Si Miao, Essentially Treasured Prescriptions was the first medical-practice encyclopedia. It features a summarisation of historic clinical experience from 200BC to AD640 (and includes prescriptions still used today), as well as an extensive study of meridians from which he designed a coloured chart that illustrated their distribution, and it established medical ethics for practitioners (Dong p. 30; Zhiya et al. p. 38).
In 624 the Office of Imperial Physicians was established. It was a government-funded formal medical institute with four departments: medicine, acupuncture, massage, and pharmacy (Dong p. 32). Its acupuncture students were instructed in meridians, acupoints, sphygmology, and needling manipulation (Cheng p. 5).
During 907 – 1368, thanks to advancements in printing technology, medical literature became more widely available than ever before, which in turn prompted great advancements in the field of Chinese medicine (Cheng p. 5).
Wang Wei Yi, having reviewed the ancient texts and also having revised acupuncture points and their related meridians, wrote Illustrated Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion: Bronze Statue with Acupoint, which in 1026 he had carved into stone to prevent copying mistakes. He was also responsible for creating two life-size human figures of bronze that included internal organs for examination as well as engraved meridians and acupuncture points. These two achievements allowed acupuncture to be unified and standardised throughout China (Cheng p. 5; Zhiya et al. p. 56-57).
From 1041 to 1048 Yang Jie carried out autopsies on executed criminals and made illustrations with explanations of his findings. His drawings were quite accurate and reprinted in many later works (Zhiya et al. p. 41-42). He advocated the importance of anatomical knowledge in selecting acupuncture points (Cheng p. 6).
In 1341, after researching prior texts on acupuncture and previously recorded acupuncture sites that were located away from the fourteen meridians, Hua Shou wrote Exposition of the Fourteen Meridians. It provided detailed descriptions on the course of the meridians and made a new acupuncture category of extra points. (Cheng p. 5-6; Zhiya et al. p. 56-57).
The Mongol empire was founded by Genghis Khan (b.1162 – d.1227) in 1206 and became the largest continuous empire in world history. Historian R. J. Rummel estimates that 30 million people were killed during the Mongol empire and that the population of China fell by half in merely fifty years of Mongol rule, also known in China as the Yuan Dynasty (Rummel p. 64).
Besides the fact that the Mongols were ruthless warriors, part of the reason for this mass loss of life was that this empire not only opened trade routes through the Eurasian steppes where, as David Christian states, ‘…the plague bacillus [bubonic plague] had long been endemic…’, but also because the Mongol empire made overland travel fast and predatorily safe throughout the empire, thus encouraging unprecedented traffic from one side of Eurasia to the other which of course brought much cross-disease contamination (Christian p. 426). Ultimately, the Mongol empire proved a violent explosion of cross-cultural interaction that facilitated mass epidemics across Eurasia in the form of bubonic plague hence the main concern for physicians in the Ming dynasty was controlling febrile disease epidemics.
Wu Youke came up with a new theory of epidemic pathogenic factors, which appeared in his book Epidemic Pestilence. He came to the conclusion that there was another type of Qi not yet recognised that entered people through the mouth or nose rather than through the skin. This was a theoretical breakthrough and became a cornerstone of seasonal febrile disease diagnosis and treatment (Zhiya et al. p. 155).
During the Ming Dynasty extensive study was undertaken in the fields of acupuncture and moxibustion by specialists in acupuncture, which greatly developed and promoted this field. Some books of this era include: Xu Feng’s 1439 work, A Completed Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, which was based on the summarisation of historical acupuncture texts; Wang Ji’s Catechism on Acupuncture and Moxibustion an academic discourse of the 20+ compound manipulation methods (1530); and in 1601 Yang Ji Zhou’s Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion which was also a summarisation of historical acupuncture texts (Cheng p. 6).
Because herbal medicine became dominant during the Qing Dynasty and nobility somehow got the idea the acupuncture was below them, the academic study of acupuncture declined severely, although the general public still continued to use it (Cheng p. 6). Even though the development of acupuncture was impaired there were still some books published on acupuncture which included Liao Ren Hong’s A Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (1874) and Cheng Dan An’s Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion Therapeutics (1931) (Dong p. 47). In 1822 the acupuncture department of the Imperial Medical College was abolished on the basis that “acupuncture and moxibustion are not suitable to be applied to the Emperor” (Cheng p. 7).
In 1840 Western medicine began to be introduced into China by Christian missionaries. In 1899 Liu Zhongheg took the first step on the path to combining traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine in his book Illustrations of the Bronze Figure with Chinese and Western Medicine (Cheng p. 7).
Although traditional Chinese medicine had not been officially studied since 1822, the new Chinese government of 1914 tried to totally ban Chinese medicines by adopting measures to restrict its use; however the government’s dissidents had different ideas. In 1944 Chairman Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party gave a speech advocating the return to the practice of traditional Chinese medicine which started China back on the road of academic advancements in traditional Chinese medicine. In April 1945 the first acupuncture clinic was opened in a comprehensive hospital (Cheng p. 7).
Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party has paid great attention to inheriting and developing the legacy of traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology (Cheng p. 8). At present in the field of traditional Chinese medicine there are 400,000 doctors, 1,500 hospitals, 1 million beds, 32 universities and 30 TAFEs (Xue p. 49).
Bibliography
Christian, David. (1998) A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Blackwell, London.
Chen, Eachou. (1995). Cross-Sectional Anatomy of Acupoints, Singapore: Churchill Livingstone.
Cheng, X.-n., Deng, L., & Cheng, Y. (Eds.). (1987). Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Dong, Lin (2006). Lecture Notes For COTH2140 Chinese Medicine Theory 1 History Of Chinese Medicine Component. RMIT University: Bundoora West
McNeill. (1998). Plagues and Peoples, revised (ed), Anchor Books, New York.
Rummel, R. J. (1997). Death by Government, Transaction Publishers, Somerset.
Zhiya, Z., Yanchi, L., Ruifu, Z. and Lianrong, D. (1995). Advanced textbook on traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology (Vol. I) . Beijing: New World Press.
Xue, Charlie. (2006) Introduction to Chinese Medicine & COTH 2140 Chinese Medicine Theory 1. (slides) . RMIT University: Bundoora West
By the Shang Dynasty (1700 – 1100BC) people had developed the theory of Yin-Yang based on observations that disharmony in the environment affects the body and can cause disease (Dong p. 13). The earliest evidence that acupuncture was practiced in China comes from remote antiquity, specifically the Shang Dynasty, from which written evidence of acupuncture has been found on bone and tortoise shell (Cheng p. 2). Archaeologists have also revealed evidence of the importance that the people of the Shang Dynasty placed on public health, with the discovery of sewage pipes, communal wells, and hieroglyphs depicting the importance of personal hygiene (Zhiya et al. p. 15-19).
A book called The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty contains evidence of the earliest medical system in China existing during the Zhou Dynasties 1100 – 2221BC (Zhiya et al. p. 15-19), in which physicians were sub-categorised as chief physicians, food physicians, internal disease physicians and veterinarians (Dong p. 14).
Around 541BC, in investigating the cause of disease, Yi He, a famous Shang physician, developed the idea of the six types of Qi that could cause disease: Yin, Yang, Wind, Rain, Darkness and Brightness (Dong p. 13).
During the Warring States Period (476 – 221BC) China underwent a social transition from a slave society to a feudal society (Cheng p. 2). According to the Advanced Textbook on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology Vol. 1, the social upheaval that took place in this time created ‘an intellectual stratum’ that allowed the upper-class time and freedom enough to pursue philosophical and scientific questions (p. 21).
In acupuncture during the Warring States Period, as iron became more widely used, metal needles gradually replaced the bian stone (Cheng p. 2).
During the 3rd Century BC the most influential Chinese medical text was produced; it was called Huang Di Nei Jing or Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, and it provided the theoretical basis on which all traditional Chinese medicine was to be built (Dong p. 17). It was a summation of all of China’s medical knowledge, theory and practice to that date, and advocated moxibustion and acupuncture as essential therapeutic techniques. (Cheng p. 2). It was a book of philosophy, anatomy and physiology, pathology, diagnostic methods, and prevention and treatments (Xue p. 45-49). It applied Yin-Yang to explain physiological functions, it summed up the five Zang and six Fu organs using the Five Elements theory, it emphasised treating the body as a whole being, and it theorised on the twelve regular meridians and eight extra meridians (Dong p. 18-20).
At the beginning of the Christian era the four distinct civilisations of China, India, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, which represented four distinct disease pools, started gradually converging, through cross-cultural exchange via ships and the Silk Road. So, it was the trade routes that facilitated the convergence of the four pools by about AD1200 (McNeill p. 94-160).
The medical milestone of the Han Dynasty (206BC – AD220) was Zhang Zhong Jing’s book, Treaties of Cold Injury and Miscellaneous Diseases (196 – 204BC) (Xue p. 45-49). This book stressed the importance of combining acupuncture with medicinal herbs (Cheng p. 3). Zhang Ji saw that many doctors were irresponsible or poorly skilled and so he wrote his book to provide theory, methodology, formulas and pharmacy, and ultimately his text ended up providing the basis for clinical medicine. Treaties of Cold Injury and Miscellaneous Diseases sets out the principles for diagnosing disease based on an holistic approach to signs and symptoms presented by a patient, which is still used today (Xue p. 45-49; Dong p. 22).
From 265 to 581 war, chaos and turmoil prevailed, thus encouraging the Chinese people to practice acupuncture because of its effectiveness and convenience. To help promote general medical knowledge in this tumultuous period, Ge Hong wrote Prescriptions of Emergencies (Cheng p. 4).
In the period of the Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties (265 – 959), China’s feudal society was at its zenith, bringing about rapid advancement in the area of medicine. Historic medical texts were revised and annotated. The establishment of different branches of medicine occurred during the Sui Dynasty, separating acupuncture into a field of its own (Dong p. 26; Cheng p. 4). The landmark book A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Huang Fu Mi was written during the Jin Dynasty (265 – 420). Compiled from the classic texts, Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor and Canon of Acupuncture and Essential of Points, it is an extensive work comprising 12 volumes and including 349 acupuncture points, and proved very influential in furthering the development of acupuncture (Dong p. 31).
Written in the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) by famous physician Sun Si Miao, Essentially Treasured Prescriptions was the first medical-practice encyclopedia. It features a summarisation of historic clinical experience from 200BC to AD640 (and includes prescriptions still used today), as well as an extensive study of meridians from which he designed a coloured chart that illustrated their distribution, and it established medical ethics for practitioners (Dong p. 30; Zhiya et al. p. 38).
In 624 the Office of Imperial Physicians was established. It was a government-funded formal medical institute with four departments: medicine, acupuncture, massage, and pharmacy (Dong p. 32). Its acupuncture students were instructed in meridians, acupoints, sphygmology, and needling manipulation (Cheng p. 5).
During 907 – 1368, thanks to advancements in printing technology, medical literature became more widely available than ever before, which in turn prompted great advancements in the field of Chinese medicine (Cheng p. 5).
Wang Wei Yi, having reviewed the ancient texts and also having revised acupuncture points and their related meridians, wrote Illustrated Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion: Bronze Statue with Acupoint, which in 1026 he had carved into stone to prevent copying mistakes. He was also responsible for creating two life-size human figures of bronze that included internal organs for examination as well as engraved meridians and acupuncture points. These two achievements allowed acupuncture to be unified and standardised throughout China (Cheng p. 5; Zhiya et al. p. 56-57).
From 1041 to 1048 Yang Jie carried out autopsies on executed criminals and made illustrations with explanations of his findings. His drawings were quite accurate and reprinted in many later works (Zhiya et al. p. 41-42). He advocated the importance of anatomical knowledge in selecting acupuncture points (Cheng p. 6).
In 1341, after researching prior texts on acupuncture and previously recorded acupuncture sites that were located away from the fourteen meridians, Hua Shou wrote Exposition of the Fourteen Meridians. It provided detailed descriptions on the course of the meridians and made a new acupuncture category of extra points. (Cheng p. 5-6; Zhiya et al. p. 56-57).
The Mongol empire was founded by Genghis Khan (b.1162 – d.1227) in 1206 and became the largest continuous empire in world history. Historian R. J. Rummel estimates that 30 million people were killed during the Mongol empire and that the population of China fell by half in merely fifty years of Mongol rule, also known in China as the Yuan Dynasty (Rummel p. 64).
Besides the fact that the Mongols were ruthless warriors, part of the reason for this mass loss of life was that this empire not only opened trade routes through the Eurasian steppes where, as David Christian states, ‘…the plague bacillus [bubonic plague] had long been endemic…’, but also because the Mongol empire made overland travel fast and predatorily safe throughout the empire, thus encouraging unprecedented traffic from one side of Eurasia to the other which of course brought much cross-disease contamination (Christian p. 426). Ultimately, the Mongol empire proved a violent explosion of cross-cultural interaction that facilitated mass epidemics across Eurasia in the form of bubonic plague hence the main concern for physicians in the Ming dynasty was controlling febrile disease epidemics.
Wu Youke came up with a new theory of epidemic pathogenic factors, which appeared in his book Epidemic Pestilence. He came to the conclusion that there was another type of Qi not yet recognised that entered people through the mouth or nose rather than through the skin. This was a theoretical breakthrough and became a cornerstone of seasonal febrile disease diagnosis and treatment (Zhiya et al. p. 155).
During the Ming Dynasty extensive study was undertaken in the fields of acupuncture and moxibustion by specialists in acupuncture, which greatly developed and promoted this field. Some books of this era include: Xu Feng’s 1439 work, A Completed Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, which was based on the summarisation of historical acupuncture texts; Wang Ji’s Catechism on Acupuncture and Moxibustion an academic discourse of the 20+ compound manipulation methods (1530); and in 1601 Yang Ji Zhou’s Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion which was also a summarisation of historical acupuncture texts (Cheng p. 6).
Because herbal medicine became dominant during the Qing Dynasty and nobility somehow got the idea the acupuncture was below them, the academic study of acupuncture declined severely, although the general public still continued to use it (Cheng p. 6). Even though the development of acupuncture was impaired there were still some books published on acupuncture which included Liao Ren Hong’s A Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (1874) and Cheng Dan An’s Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion Therapeutics (1931) (Dong p. 47). In 1822 the acupuncture department of the Imperial Medical College was abolished on the basis that “acupuncture and moxibustion are not suitable to be applied to the Emperor” (Cheng p. 7).
In 1840 Western medicine began to be introduced into China by Christian missionaries. In 1899 Liu Zhongheg took the first step on the path to combining traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine in his book Illustrations of the Bronze Figure with Chinese and Western Medicine (Cheng p. 7).
Although traditional Chinese medicine had not been officially studied since 1822, the new Chinese government of 1914 tried to totally ban Chinese medicines by adopting measures to restrict its use; however the government’s dissidents had different ideas. In 1944 Chairman Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party gave a speech advocating the return to the practice of traditional Chinese medicine which started China back on the road of academic advancements in traditional Chinese medicine. In April 1945 the first acupuncture clinic was opened in a comprehensive hospital (Cheng p. 7).
Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party has paid great attention to inheriting and developing the legacy of traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology (Cheng p. 8). At present in the field of traditional Chinese medicine there are 400,000 doctors, 1,500 hospitals, 1 million beds, 32 universities and 30 TAFEs (Xue p. 49).
Bibliography
Christian, David. (1998) A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Blackwell, London.
Chen, Eachou. (1995). Cross-Sectional Anatomy of Acupoints, Singapore: Churchill Livingstone.
Cheng, X.-n., Deng, L., & Cheng, Y. (Eds.). (1987). Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Dong, Lin (2006). Lecture Notes For COTH2140 Chinese Medicine Theory 1 History Of Chinese Medicine Component. RMIT University: Bundoora West
McNeill. (1998). Plagues and Peoples, revised (ed), Anchor Books, New York.
Rummel, R. J. (1997). Death by Government, Transaction Publishers, Somerset.
Zhiya, Z., Yanchi, L., Ruifu, Z. and Lianrong, D. (1995). Advanced textbook on traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology (Vol. I) . Beijing: New World Press.
Xue, Charlie. (2006) Introduction to Chinese Medicine & COTH 2140 Chinese Medicine Theory 1. (slides) . RMIT University: Bundoora West
posted by Assignment Nerd at 8:12 pm
1 Comments:
University: RMIT
Subject: Chinese Medical Theory 1
Semester: 1, 2006
Mark: Distinction
Comments: it is very difficult to cram 6000 years of history into 2500 word.
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