Acupuncture

History of Acupuncture

The exact date when acupuncture was first developed in China has never been agreed; though the method used to treat ailments can be traced back 2,000 years ago. However, it is believed to have gone back as far as 4,000 years ago when sharp stones were thought to have been used to drain abscesses. The Chinese character which literally means 'use of a sharp edged stone to treat disease' is 'Bian'; the character 'bi' signifying the disease of pain. The stones thought to be used initially in the treatment of disease were called 'Bian stones'.

The Chinese word for the method of acupuncture is signified by the Chinese character 'Chen' which literally means 'to prick with a needle'. The European term 'acupuncture' was invented after the Dutch physician, William Ten Rhyne visited Japan in the seventeenth century and witnessed this method of treating disease for himself.

Though the art of acupuncture has been used for many thousands of years, it is still thought of as quite a new and drastic method in Western society and has never fully been treated with the same respect as Western medicine and medical procedures. This seems to be quite astonishing as acupuncture can definitely not be said to be a new form of treating disease.

The first text describing the method of acupuncture is again another point of contention with historians as its source and authorship are questioned. The main belief is that the Nei Ching Su Wen text is the first text to describe acupuncture also known as the "Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine" and "The Canon of Medicine". The text (whatever name is given to it), is split into two sections known as the 'Su Wen' (simple questions) and the 'Ling Shu' (difficult questions). The first section of this text is given predominantly to the philosophy of Chinese medicine and varies greatly from the Western approach as philosophies and theories are applied rather than physiology to look into different types of disease.

Different approaches to acupuncture and Chinese medicine in general were developed at different periods of history. Primarily, in the early Zhou dynasty, disease was thought to be a result of evil influence on an individual and that any treatment was based in demonology to cure that individual. However, arguably the Zhou dynasty helped to facilitate the move to a more established and recognisable form of treatment for disease in Chinese medicine.

With the introduction of Confucianism during the Zhou dynasty, there was a significant move from the concept of illness being to do with the supernatural towards illness being more to do with the interaction between health of an individual and that person's actions. Confucianism was also concerned that the human body must remain intact throughout life and into death and so surgery was opposed as a method of curing disease. Therefore acupuncture was a good means of remedying ailments without cutting into the subject. Moreover, towards the end of this dynasty with the introduction of Taoism into Chinese culture alongside the already established notion of Confucianism, there was acceptance of different theories and practises in medicine which didn't serve to discount each other, but embrace differences of opinion.

Moving towards the Han dynasty, we see that around the point in history medicine advanced significantly and it is here that the production of the Nei Ching Su Wen text, as previously mentioned, which was specifically about acupuncture and the theoretical notions behind it.