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Although westerners steadily bring to mind this conventional Chinese remedy modality as a “new” type of selection medication, acupuncture is so historic in China that its origins are unclear. According to Huangfu Mi (c. 215-282 AD), creator of The Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, needling treatment was once first used all the way through China’s Bronze Age, over 5 thousand years in the past. He attributes its invention to both Fu Xi or Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), two mythical figures of the Five Emperors Period (c. 3000-2070 BC). Modern students typically imagine that acupuncture is way older, originating greater than 10000 years in the past all the way through China’s Neolithic Age (c. 8000-3500 BC).
In reality, acupuncture is probably not as historic as has typically been assumed. A reconsideration of all extant paperwork and up to date archaeological reveals signifies that acupuncture would possibly date again an insignificant 2100 to 2300 years, first showing all the way through China’s Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and swiftly maturing all the way through the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD).
Questioning the typically authorised origins principle.
The these days authorised principle regarding the Neolithic origins of acupuncture is in keeping with two premises. The first holds that bian shi, specialised sharp-edged stone gear that gave the impression all the way through China’s Neolithic Age, have been used for an early type of needling treatment, previous to the discovery of steel smelting. It is understood that bian shi stone gear have been applied for quite a few early scientific procedures, beginning all the way through the Neolithic Age and proceeding in the course of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD). Plenty of descriptions of bian shi stone treatment seem in one in all China’s earliest scientific works, The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic of Medicine (Huang Di Neijing, hereafter known as the Neijing) (c. 104-32 BC). It has been concept that those Neolithic stone scientific tools have been precursors of the steel acupuncture needles that got here into use all the way through China’s Iron Age.
However, ancient paperwork and new archaeological proof obviously point out that bian shi stone gear have been flat and knife-like in shape, used basically to incise abscesses to discharge pus, or to attract blood (1). They have been carried out as surgical scalpels to chop, relatively than as needles to puncture, and had not anything to do with needling treatment. According to the Code of Hammurabi, the traditional population of Mesopotamia used in a similar fashion formed bronze knives to incise abscesses over 4000 years in the past.
Prehistoric Chinese folks possessed needles fabricated from quite a lot of fabrics, starting from crude thorns and quills to bone, bamboo, pottery, and stone. But simply because the historical past of the knife isn’t the historical past of surgical operation, so the discovery of needles and that of acupuncture are two totally various things. Needles have traditionally been a few of the maximum regularly used gear of day-to-day lifestyles for establishing clothes in every single place the arena. Medically, needles are used to suture incisions simply as making up garments with darners, hole syringe needles (as differentiated from a cast needle utilized in acupuncture) are carried out to inject fluids into the frame or draw them from it, however pricking a cast needle into the frame to regard sickness turns out very bizarre and enigmatical. In English, “to give somebody the needle” manner to displease or aggravate anyone. Most folks favor to not be punctured with needles, and affiliate needling with ache and harm. Many vegetation and animals have advanced thorns or quills as tough guns for defense or assault. Needles have been even used for punishment in historic China. By trial and blunder, healers right through the arena have discovered remedies for ache and different illnesses independently, for cases, herbs, roots, wraps, rubs, blood-letting and surgical operation, however acupuncture by myself is exclusive to Chinese. Considering the original Chinese starting place of acupuncture, it’s cheap to think that the discovery of acupuncture was once no longer associated with the supply of both stitching needles or bian shi stone scalpels all the way through China’s Neolithic Age.
The 2d premise supporting the speculation of the Neolithic origins of acupuncture holds that acupuncture advanced as a herbal outgrowth of day-to-day lifestyles in prehistoric occasions. It is believed that thru a means of fortuitous coincidence and repeated empirical enjoy, it was once came upon that needling quite a lot of issues at the frame may successfully deal with quite a lot of prerequisites. However, this assumption is missing in each elementary ancient proof and a logical basis.
It is understood that historic folks have been acutely aware of scenarios wherein bodily issues have been relieved following unrelated harm. Such a case was once reported via Zhang Zihe (c. 1156-1228 AD), one of the vital 4 eminent physicians of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties (1115-1368 AD) and a consultant in blood-letting treatment: “Bachelor Zhao Zhongwen developed an acute eye problem during his participation in the imperial examination. His eyes became red and swollen, accompanied by blurred vision and severe pain. The pain was so unbearable that he contemplated death. One day, Zhao was in teahouse with a friend. Suddenly, a stovepipe fell and hit him on the forehead, causing a wound about 3-4 cun in length and letting copious amounts of dark purple blood. When the bleeding stopped, a miracle had occurred. Zhao’s eyes stopped hurting; he could see the road and was able to go home by himself. The next day he could make out the ridge of his roof. Within several days, he was completely recovered. This case was cured with no intentional treatment but only accidental trauma (2).”
If acupuncture did, in reality, step by step expand as the results of such fortuitous injuries, China’s 4 thousand years of recorded historical past must come with a lot of identical accounts regarding the discovery of the acupoints and their houses. But my intensive seek of the immense Chinese scientific canon and different literature has yielded handiest this unmarried case. Actually, this tale provides at maximum an instance of blood-letting treatment, which differs in some very important regards from acupuncture. The level of blood-letting treatment is to take away a certain quantity of blood. But when puncturing the frame with cast needles, not anything is added to or subtracted from the frame.
Blood-letting treatment is common. Throughout recorded historical past, folks around the globe have had identical studies with the recommended result of unintentional harm, and feature advanced therapeutic strategies in keeping with the main that injuring and inducing bleeding in a single a part of the frame can relieve issues in every other space. The historic Greeks and Romans advanced venesection and cupping in keeping with the invention that bleeding is recommended in instances akin to fever, headache, and disordered menstruation. Europeans all the way through the Middle Ages used blood-letting as a panacea for the prevention and remedy of illness. Detailed instructions got relating to essentially the most favorable days and hours for blood-letting, the proper veins to be tapped, the quantity of blood to be taken, and the collection of bleedings. Blood was once most often taken via opening a vein with a lancet, however on occasion via blood-sucking leeches or with using cupping vessels. Blood-letting the usage of leeches continues to be practiced in some spaces of Europe and the Middle East. However, nowhere did those blood-letting strategies turn into an in depth and complete device related to that of acupuncture. If acupuncture did certainly stand up from repeated empirical enjoy of unintentional harm, it must have advanced in every single place the arena, relatively than simply in China.
Both ancient proof and good judgment point out that there’s no causal relation between the improvement of fabrics and methods for making needles and the discovery of acupuncture. It may be transparent that repeated enjoy of fortuitous unintentional harm was once no longer a number one issue within the building of acupuncture. Therefore, the typically authorised principle regarding the Neolithic origins of acupuncture, primarily based as it’s upon such erroneous premises, should be flawed. It is now vital to rethink when acupuncture did, in reality, first seem and due to this fact mature.
Reconsidering the proof
If acupuncture did certainly originate all the way through China’s Neolithic Age, references to it must seem right through China’s earliest written information and archaeological relics. However, this isn’t the case.
Early cultures believed the arena to be full of the supernatural, and advanced quite a lot of strategies of divination. During China’s Shang Dynasty (c. 1500-1000 BC), divination was once practiced via burning animal bones and tortoise shells with moxa or different fabrics. Oracular pronouncements have been then inscribed at the bone or shell, in keeping with the ensuing crackles. These inscriptions have survived because the earliest examples of written Chinese characters. Among the masses of hundreds of inscribed oracle bones and shells discovered so far, 323 include predictions relating to over twenty other illnesses and issues. However, none of those inscriptions point out acupuncture, or another type of remedy for that subject.
Rites of the Zhou Dynasty (Zhou Li), written all the way through the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), information intimately the reliable rituals and laws of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1000-256 BC), together with the ones relating to medication. Royal docs at the moment have been divided into 4 classes: dieticians, who have been accountable for the rulers’ food and drinks; docs of inner medication, who handled illnesses and issues with grains and herbs; surgeons, or yang yi, who handled issues akin to abscesses, open sores, wounds, and fractures the usage of zhuyou (incantation), medicine, and debridement (the usage of stone or steel knives to scrape and take away pus and necrotic tissue); and veterinarians, who handled animals. But this file as smartly accommodates no references to acupuncture.
Neijing (c. 104-32 BC) is the primary identified paintings relating to acupuncture. The vintage is composed of 2 portions: Suwen – Simple Questions, and Lingshu – the Spiritual Pivot, often referred to as The Classic of Acupuncture (Zhen Jing). Both are involved basically with the speculation and apply of acupuncture and moxibustion. Although authorship of the Neijing is attributed to Huang Di, the mythical Yellow Emperor (c. 2650 BC), maximum students believe that this grasp paintings, which accommodates excerpts from greater than twenty pre-existing scientific treatises, was once if truth be told compiled between 104 BC and 32 BC, all the way through the latter a part of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-24 AD). The complete and extremely advanced nature of the scientific device introduced within the Neijing has led students to imagine that needling treatment has an especially lengthy historical past, almost certainly attaining again to prehistoric occasions. The unique variations of the traditional texts used within the compilation of the Neijing had been misplaced, and with them the chance to additional light up the query of when acupuncture if truth be told first gave the impression. However, startling new archaeological proof, unearthed in China within the early Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, unearths the actual state of Chinese medication previous to the Neijing, and demanding situations current assumptions regarding the Neolithic origins of acupuncture.
In overdue 1973, fourteen scientific paperwork, referred to as the Ancient Medical Relics of Mawangdui, have been excavated from Grave No. 3 at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province. Ten of the paperwork have been hand-copied on silk, and 4 have been written on bamboo slips. The actual age of the Ancient Medical Relics of Mawangdui has no longer been decided. However, a wood pill discovered within the grave states that the deceased was once the son of Prime Minister Li Chang of the state of Changsha, and that he was once buried on February 24, 168 BC. The unsystematic and empirical nature of the fabric contained within the paperwork signifies that they have been written smartly prior to their interment in 168 BC, almost certainly across the heart of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). In any tournament, it’s sure that those scientific paperwork pre-date the Neijing (compiled c. 104-32 BC), making them the oldest identified scientific paperwork in life. These paperwork have been almost certainly misplaced someday all the way through the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD), since no point out of them has been discovered from this time till their rediscovery in 1973.
Another treasured scientific in finding, The Book of the Meridians (Mai Shu), was once excavated from two historic tombs at Zhangjiashan in Jiangling County, Hubei Province in 1983. These historic texts, written on bamboo slips and rather smartly preserved, have been almost certainly buried between 187 and 179 BC, round the similar time because the Mawangdui relics. There are 5 paperwork in all, 3 of which (The Classic of Moxibustion with Eleven Yin-Yang Meridians, Methods of Pulse Examination and Bian Stone, and Indications of Death at the Yin-Yang Meridians) are similar to the texts discovered at Mawangdui.
There is plentiful proof to turn that the authors of the Neijing used the sooner scientific texts from Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan as number one references, additional indicating the antiquity of those relics. For instance, Chapter 10 of the Lingshu phase of the Neijing accommodates a dialogue of the meridians and their issues this is very identical, in each shape and content material, to that discovered within the Classic of Moxibustion with Eleven Yin-Yang Meridians, one of the vital paperwork discovered at each Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan.
Of route, the Neijing didn’t merely reproduce those previous paperwork, however relatively subtle and advanced them, and offered new healing strategies. The previous Classic of Moxibustion with Eleven Yin-Yang Meridians is restricted to moxibustion, whilst Chapter 10 of the Lingshu phase of the Neijing mentions needling treatment, or acupuncture, for the primary time. Although the scientific texts previous the Neijing talk about all kinds of therapeutic ways, together with natural medication, moxibustion, fomentation, medicinal bathing, bian stone treatment, therapeutic massage, daoyin (bodily workout routines), xingqi (respiring workout routines), zhuyou (incantation), or even surgical operation, those previous paperwork include no point out of acupuncture.
If needling treatment did certainly originate a lot previous than the Neijing (c. 104-32 BC), the scientific paperwork unearthed from Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan, very almost certainly used as number one references via the Neijing’s authors, must additionally include intensive discussions of acupuncture. However, they don’t. This obviously signifies that acupuncture was once no longer but in use on the time that the Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan paperwork have been compiled. Of route, it isn’t conceivable to attract an in depth image of the state of acupuncture early within the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD) primarily based only at the scientific relics from Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan. But the truth that those paperwork have been thought to be treasured sufficient to be buried with the deceased signifies that they do replicate normal scientific apply on the time.
The Historical Records (Shi Ji) (c. 104-91 BC) via Sima Qian accommodates proof that acupuncture was once first used roughly 100 years previous to the compilation of the Neijing (c. 104-32 BC). The Historical Records, China’s first complete historical past, is composed of a sequence of biographies attaining from the time of the mythical Yellow Emperor (c. 2650 BC) to Emperor Wudi (156-87 BC) of the Western Han Dynasty. Among those are biographies of China’s two earliest scientific practitioners, Bian Que and Cang Gong. Bian Que’s given identify was once Qin Yueren. It is understood that he lived from 407-310 BC, all the way through the overdue Warring States Period (475-221 BC), and was once a modern of Hippocrates (c. 460-377 BC), the daddy of Western medication. Bian Que’s lifestyles was once surrounded via an air of secrecy of puzzle which makes it tricky to split reality from legend. His identify manner Wayfaring Magpie – a chicken which symbolizes just right fortune. It is claimed that an previous guy gave Bian Que quite a few esoteric scientific texts and an natural prescription, after which disappeared. Bian Que took the medication in keeping with the mysterious customer’s directions. Thirty days later, he may see thru partitions. Thereafter, on every occasion he recognized illness, he may obviously see the interior organs of his sufferers’ our bodies. Like the centaur Chiron, son of Apollo, who’s on occasion considered the god of surgical operation within the West, Bian Que is thought of as to be a supernatural determine, and the god of therapeutic. A stone aid, unearthed from a tomb courting again to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), depicts him with a human head on a chicken’s frame (3). The Historical Records states that Bian Que effectively resuscitated the prince of the State of Guo the usage of a mixture of acupuncture, fomentation, and natural medication. Bian Que is thus thought to be to be the founding father of acupuncture, and to have made the primary recorded use of acupuncture all the way through the Warring States Period (475-221 BC).
More cast proof connects the delivery of acupuncture with the well-known historic doctor Chunyu Yi (c. 215-140 BC), popularly referred to as Cang Gong. Cang Gong’s lifestyles and paintings are described intimately within the Historical Records. The Historical Records state that during 180 BC, Cang Gong’s instructor gave him quite a few valuable scientific texts that had escaped the book-burnings of the closing days of the Great Qin Empire (221-207 BC). At that point, adherents of all opposing colleges of concept have been achieved or exiled, and virtually all books no longer conforming to the inflexible Legalist doctrines that ruled the Qin Dynasty have been burned. Although scientific texts escaped the crisis, their homeowners nonetheless feared persecution. The banned books that Cang Gong gained may have integrated a bunch whose titles seem within the Ancient Medical Relics of Mawangdui, such because the Classic of Moxibustion with Eleven Yin-Yang Meridians, Classic of Moxibustion with Eleven Foot-Arm Meridians, Method of Pulse Examination and Bian Stone, Therapeutic Methods for 52 Diseases, Miscellaneous Forbidden Methods, and The Book of Sex.
Cang Gong’s biography within the Historical Records discusses twenty-five of his instances, courting from roughly 186 BC to 154 BC. These instances research, the earliest in recorded Chinese historical past, give a transparent image of the way illness was once handled over 2100 years in the past. Of the twenty-five instances, ten have been recognized as incurable and the sufferers died as predicted. Of the fifteen that have been cured, 11 have been handled with natural medication, two with moxibustion together with natural medication, one with needling, and one with needling together with pouring chilly water at the affected person’s head. It will also be observed from this subject matter that Cang Gong used natural medication as his number one remedy, and acupuncture and moxibustion handiest secondarily. His use of moxibustion adheres strictly to the doctrines recorded within the medial relics from Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan. Although handiest two of Cang Gong’s moxibustion instances are recorded within the Historical Records, it’s identified that he was once knowledgeable in its use, and that he wrote a ebook referred to as Cang Gong’s Moxibustion. Unfortunately, this ebook has been misplaced. In comparability along with his wide-ranging usage of natural medication and moxibustion, Cang Gong carried out needling treatment very sparingly. Neither of Cang Gong’s two recorded acupuncture instances mentions explicit acupoints or how the needles have been manipulated, indicating that needling treatment on the time was once nonetheless in its preliminary level.
Although acupuncture was once no longer in commonplace use all the way through Cang Gong’s day, his two recorded acupuncture sufferers have been cured with just one remedy, indicating the efficacy of the nascent treatment. The speedy building of acupuncture was once quickly to practice. By the time the Neijing was once compiled (c. 104-32 BC), roughly 100 years after the time of Cang Gong, acupuncture had supplanted herbs and moxibustion because the remedy of selection. Only 13 natural prescriptions are recorded within the Neijing, in comparison with masses using acupuncture.
Archaeological excavations of Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD) tombs have yielded quite a few vital scientific relics associated with acupuncture, along with the Neijing and Historical Records. In July of 1968, 9 steel needles have been excavated at Mancheng, Hebei Province from the tomb of Prince Liu Sheng (?-113 BC) of Zhongshan, elder brother of Emperor Wu Di (156-87 BC) of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD). Four of the needles are gold and rather smartly preserved, whilst 5 are silver and decayed to the level that it was once no longer conceivable to revive them totally. The quantity and shapes of the excavated needles point out that they’ll had been an show off of the 9 kinds of acupuncture needles described within the Neijing. This risk is supported via the truth that quite a few further scientific tools have been discovered within the tomb. These integrated a bronze yigong (practitioner’s basin) used for decocting medicinal herbs or making tablets, a bronze sieve used to clear out natural decoctions, and a silver utensil used to pour medication (4). Although many prehistoric bone needles had been unearthed, the reality that they’ve eyes signifies that they have been used for stitching. Some students have inferred that prehistoric Chinese folks could have used bone needles discovered without a eyes or with issues on each ends for scientific functions. However, I imagine that it’s rash to attract this sort of conclusion primarily based only on relics that experience lain buried for hundreds of years. Rather, it’s most probably that the eyes of those needles have merely decayed over the millennia.
Conclusion
A radical reevaluation of all extant literature, in addition to paperwork and archaeological relics unearthed because the Nineteen Sixties, confirms that acupuncture isn’t as historic as has typically been assumed, and that it didn’t, in reality, seem and step by step expand all the way through China’s Neolithic Age (c. 8000-3500 BC). Rather, this nice invention arose rather and swiftly advanced roughly two millennia in the past. All proof signifies that acupuncture first gave the impression all the way through the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), all the way through the time of Bian Que, advanced all the way through the early Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD), all the way through the time of Cang Gong, and had absolutely matured via the latter a part of the Western Han Dynasty, on the time of the compilation of the Neijing (c. 104-32 BC).
The Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD) equipped fertile flooring for the speedy enlargement and maturation of acupuncture as a complete scientific device. The earlier centuries had observed the blossoming of Chinese tradition all the way through the highbrow give-and-take of the Spring and Autumn (770-476 BC) and Warring States (475-221 BC) classes. The next territorial unification of China via the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) laid a basis for the cultural integration of the varied states. Taken within the context of China’s 4 thousand years of recorded historical past, the Western Han Dynasty was once a length of in depth social and cultural development. Acupuncture is exclusive. Its invention of acupuncture in China right now was once the results of the improvement and distinctive convergence of a number of facets of Chinese tradition all the way through this time, together with herbal science, social construction and human family members, and most significantly, holistic philosophy.
References and notes:
1. Bai Xinghua, et al., Acupuncture: Visible Holism. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001, pps. 15-20.
2. Zhang Zhihe (1156-1228 AD), Confucians’ Duties to Their Parents (Rumen Shiqin). Quoted in Selection and Annotation of Medical Cases Treated via Past Dynasties’ Eminent Acupuncturists (Lidai Zhenjiu Mingjia Yian Xuanzhu), ed. Li Fufeng. Harbin: Heilongjiang Science and Technology Publishing House, 1985, p. 143.
3. Liu Dunyuan. Stone Relief Showing Practice of Acupuncture and Moxibustion from the Eastern Han Dynast. Archaeology, 1972; (6): 47-51
4. Zhong Yiyan, Medical Instruments Unearthed from the Western Han Dynasty Tomb of Liu Sheng. Archaeology, 1972, (3): pp. 49-53.
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Source via Bai Xinghua
