acupuncture

Synonyms

Chin. Original designation: zhenjiu - stinging and burning (moxibustation)
Lat .: acus - needle, pungere - prick "therapy with needles"

definition

"The acupuncture uses pricks with gold or silver needles at precisely defined main points, which can be spontaneous or tender, in functional reversible diseases or disorders for diagnostic and / or therapeutic purposes. "
This definition of acupuncture according to De la Fuye still applies, with one exception: today, mostly sterile steel needles are used. In China, however, gold and silver needles are occasionally used again.

introduction

The acupuncture and Moxibustion (Heat treatment at designated points) is only a small part of the traditionally Chinese medicine (TCM)which in turn represents only a small part of a philosophical system. In our western medicine, however, only acupuncture has found its way to a larger extent.
However, acupuncture is still controversial. On the one hand there are fanatics who sell acupuncture as a universal therapy, on the other hand it is angrily rejected by colleagues as charlatanry. Both are wrong. Acupuncture certainly is not a panacea.
she is a Order therapywhose use is useful for the disturbed, but not for the destroyed. Acupuncture cannot repair damaged organs and tissues. But she pushes the Self-healing of the body and can restore disturbed functions and relieve pain.

effect

What exactly happens in the body during acupuncture has not yet been scientifically proven one hundred percent. Thanks to modern scientific research methods, the acupuncture effect has been explained much better in recent years. However, explanations are missing for the fact that shoulder pain, for example, can be treated particularly well from a certain point on the lower leg, but not from a point just off it. The following effects have been scientifically proven to date:

• Nervous-reflective
• Humoral endocrine: Influence on endorphin, serotonin, and cortisone production
• Vasoactive effect: directly on the blood circulation and via the activation of the vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP)
• Muscle action
• Effect on the immune system

Most patients usually feel a pleasant, soothing and relaxing feeling after the first treatment. The healing effect comes from This is due to the fact that the stimulating stimulus of the needles in the brain triggers an increased release of pain-relieving and mood-enhancing substances.
These "happiness hormones" are:

• Serotonin
• your body's own morphines like that
• Endorphin as well
• Enkephalins.

With modern methods, such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance tomography - nuclear spin), the effects of acupuncture or laser acupuncture can be demonstrated via the metabolic activity in the brain. In the areas of the brain that are connected to the stimulated acupuncture points, increased activity is shown.

Acupuncture can also help to relieve pain caused by bone edema in the knee area. Read our article on this: Bone edema of the knee

history

If one wants to understand the principle and the application of acupuncture, one cannot avoid dealing with the history and origin of this healing art.
Acupuncture is an ancient one Therapy technology from China. Back then, pain and illness were still associated with spirits and demons. The beginnings can be traced back to more than 3000 years BC. To date. Excavations prove this with finds of stone or bamboo needles.
Major medical breakthroughs and achievements are often discovered by chance or even accidents. There were such good fortunes at the beginning of acupuncture. Accidental bruises, abrasions or arrow wounds suddenly caused pain to disappear and never recur. Rubbing and massaging as well as tapping certain parts of the body also relieved pain. Over time, certain points emerged that were particularly effective and these relationships began to be explored and systematized.
At the beginning, one dotted with relatively thick stone needles and cut with stone fragments. Needles were later made from bamboo, bones and, in the Bronze Age, from metals. Today, mostly sterile single-use needles are used.
It was similar with the firing method (Moxibustion). After the fire was discovered, its pain-relieving and soothing warmth was recognized. At first simple charcoal was used, later with the further development of moxibustion the so-called moxa herb (mugwort herb). It can e.g. Can be rolled as a kind of cigar and is held gently over the skin when burning (risk of burns!) and additionally stimulates various points.
The first major work on acupuncture was written around 221 BC to 220 AD in the Han dynasty. The historian Si Ma Jian (also: Sima Qian) wrote the "Inner Classics of the Yellow Prince" – "Huangdi Neijing". In this work, the legendary yellow emperor (Huang ti) has a dialogue with his minister Chi Po. This book is that Basic work of traditional Chinese medicine in general and acupuncture and moxibustion in particular. This book describes the most important channels, different needles, stitch techniques and indications for the use of certain acupuncture points. This work describes 160 classic acupuncture points. Basically it consists of two parts. For one, it includes the "Unsolicited Questions" (Suwen). This part is mainly concerned with the theory of medicine. On the other hand, the Lingshu (Pivotal point of the structural force / center of effectiveness) acupuncture practice, meridians, collaterals, points, manipulation techniques, etc. described. The translation of this work poses a major problem. There are now numerous variants and interpretations. Reasons for this are the different dialects in China, the change in meaning, grammar and pronunciation over time, the interpretation of Chinese image writing, different accentuations of individual syllables (equally pronounced syllables and characters can also have different meanings), synonyms of the acupuncture points and theirs Numbering in the meridian course, etc. So you can see that some problems arise here when studying this wisdom. Therefore, you should entrust yourself to a “Nei Jing expert” in order to work out the content exactly.
Another classic is that "Nanjing" (Classic of Objections) by Qin Yue-Ren (also called Bian Que). He lived 500 BC And goes back to the previous work, in which Aku-Moxi therapy is explained for the first time.
Surgeons also used the acupuncture technique. The famous (and first known) surgeon Hua Tuo (110-207 AD) is said to have cured his patients with just one needle. He also numbed her with a herbal mixture (Ma Fei San) made from hemp and wine.
Huang Fumi wrote the in the Jin Dynasty around 259 AD “Systematic Aku-Moxi classics (zhenjiu jiayi jing) " (Classic about stinging and burning or the ABC of acupuncture and moxibustion), which is the second most important work after the book of the yellow emperor. Here acupuncture is systematized and 349 points are mentioned and described for the first time, which were not yet known in the “Book of the Yellow Prince”.
In the work “Recipes that are worth a thousand gold pieces” (Qian jin Fang) Sun Si Miao writes that a really good doctor does not use acupuncture without moxibustion and, conversely, does not practice herbal therapy without acupuncture.
The doctor Wang Weiyi The TCM world owes a very special invention. To check his students, he built two life-size bronze statues, filled them with water and covered them with beeswax. If the pupils hit the right points, a small jet of water flowed out of the bronze figure. The accompanying work, which was published in 1027 AD. ("tong ren shu xue zhen jiu tu jing" - Illustrated manual on points for acupuncture and moxibustion using a bronze statue) set new milestones.
In the course of time, new knowledge, new points and meridians were added and the well-known were summarized and expanded. The preliminary high point of the presentation of acupuncture and TCM can be found in the 16th and 17th centuries in "Sum of Aku - Moxi - Therapy" (zhen jiu da cheng) from 1601. Yang Ji-Zhou summarized all of them up to this point in this work available literature, added new findings and provided everything with numerous comments and case descriptions, as well as secret treatment methods.
Up to this point in the Ming Dynasty, acupuncture continued to develop. However, this development stagnated under the feudal rule of the Ching dynasty and colonialism. From the 19th century, western medicine was introduced in the course of modernization and acupuncture and moxibustion were excluded from medical schools. This art could only survive among the people. The more western medicine was spread in China, the more TCM had to give way. In 1929 an application was even made to ban traditional healing methods. It was only after the Communist Party came to power under Mao Zedong that acupuncture and herbal therapy were given equal status alongside Western medicine. One of the reasons for this was that it was recognized that the country had too few doctors trained according to scientific standards to be able to provide it with sufficient medical care. Therefore around 500,000 TCM practitioners were integrated into the state health system as so-called "barefoot doctors". It was hoped that in time she would take over western medicine more and more.
Nowadays, a medical student in China has to learn Traditional Chinese Medicine for at least one year in his 5-year course, even if he only wants to practice conventional medicine.

Development of acupuncture outside of China

Outside of China, the acupuncture and the TCM (Ttraditional chinesian M.edizin) via Korea to Japan. The monk Zhi Cong brought e.g. Books from China to Japan with.
The first reports in the 14th century AD were known in the West through Marco Polo. But it was not until 1657 that the Dutch doctor Jakob de Bondt published a work on the natural history and medicine of East Asia (Willem Piso's work “De utriusque Indiae”).
The term "acupuncture" was finally used by Beijing Jesuit monks in the 17thCentury. In 1683, Willem Ten Rhyne wrote a detailed treatise on the clinical effects of needle stick therapy and the system of pathways, which he mistakenly interpreted as blood vessels.
In 1712 Engelbert Kaempfer wrote about the therapy of abdominal pain and helped acupuncture to attract more attention. Both Ten Rhyne and Kaempfer wrote their reports based on investigations in Japan. Sometimes they did not even know the fundamental differences to Chinese therapy.
In 1809 there were the first clinical trials with acupuncture by the Parisian doctor Louis Berlioz, which was used almost exclusively in pain therapy. In the following decades there was a real “acupuncture euphoria” in Paris. The first German-language publication about acupuncture took place in 1824 through a translation of "A Treatise on Acupuncture" by the Englishman James M. Churchill.
More well-known names that the Acupuncture in Europe New honors have been helped: De la Fuye, Chamfrault and then the Vietnamese who lives in France Nguyen van Nghi, while in German-speaking countries especially Heribert Schmidt, Gerhard Bachmann, Erich stepfather and later Manfred Porkert for acupuncture and TCM (Ttraditional chinesian M.medicine).
In America and Canada it was mainly the overseas Chinese who made the spread of TCM (Ttraditional chinesian M.edizin) helped, but after China opened its doors to foreigners in the 80s, a whole new age of TCM was ushered in in the West, especially with regard to herbal therapy. Today numerous TCM students travel to the Middle Kingdom to learn directly from the roots of TCM.