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October 2002, Vol 92, No. 10 | American Journal of Public Health 1592-1593
© 2002 American Public Health Association

IMAGES OF HEALTH

Exploring Acupuncture: Ancient Ideas, Modern Techniques

Elizabeth Fee, Theodore M. Brown, Jan Lazarus and Paul Theerman

Elizabeth Fee, Jan Lazarus, and Paul Theerman are with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, Building 38, Room 1E21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: elizabeth_fee{at}nlm.nih.gov).


   INTRODUCTION
TOP
 INTRODUCTION
References
 
THIS TECHNICIAN IS demonstrating the use of lasers to stimulate acupuncture points. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, health is a state of balance between yang and yin, and between the 5 elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.1 Life energy, or qi, flows through the meridians of the body and may be accessed at several hundred points. The skilled acupuncturist is able to restore balance by using selected points to adjust the energy flow. Traditional medicine uses very fine needles or heated herbs (moxibustion), but the Chinese are now experimenting with a variety of stimulation techniques, including low-voltage electricity, laser beams, and sonar rays.

The traditional Chinese system of meridians does not correspond with any anatomical structures recognized by Western medicine. David Eisenberg, the first American medical exchange student sent to China in 1979, reflects on the difficulty of translating between the 2 incommensurable systems of medicine in a lively account of his explorations in traditional Chinese medicine, Encounters With Qi.2 More recently, the Japanese scholar Shigehisa Kuriyama has offered a remarkable philosophical exploration of the ways in which these different conceptions of the body reflect different ways of thinking, ways of touching, ways of experiencing the body, and ways of being one’s "self."3

Traditional Chinese medicine is thousands of years old and is associated with the legendary Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, written in the third or second century BC.4,5 Today, about 1 million traditionally trained doctors and pharmacists practice throughout China and eastern Asia, with smaller numbers working in the United States and other Western nations.

For public health practitioners, it is interesting to note that traditional Chinese medicine places a great deal of emphasis on the prevention of disease and the body’s ability to resist illness. It is closely related to the practice of t’ai chi ch’uan, a set of exercises that for 24 centuries have been used to keep the body healthy.6 As visitors to China can attest, millions of people practice tai chi on a daily basis. In the early mornings, in any public park, it is a wonderful sight to watch crowds of people of all ages moving in unison through the gentle structured movements of tai chi.



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  		Source.World Health Organization (D. Henrioud, photographer). From the Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine.

 

   Footnotes
 
Note. Most of the Prints and Photographs Collection of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine may be viewed through the on-line database "Images From the History of Medicine" at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/. The Web site also provides information on ordering reproductions of images. If you have a print, photograph, or other visual item that might be appropriate for this collection, please contact the History of Medicine Division.


   References
TOP
 INTRODUCTION
 References
 
1. Connelly DM. Traditional Acupuncture: The Law of the Five Elements. Columbia, Md: Traditional Acupuncture Institute; 1994.

2. Eisenberg D, with Wright TL. Encounters With Qi: Exploring Chinese Medicine. New York, NY: W. W. Norton; 1985.

3. Kuriyama S. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York, NY: Zone Books; 2002.

4. Veith I, trans. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press; 1966.

5. Feng M, Doherty Y, Rhee Y. Classics of Traditional Chinese Medicine [exhibition held at the National Library of medicine]. Available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/chinese/chinesehome.html. Accessed July 11, 2002.

6. Eisenberg D. Medicine in a mind/ body culture. In: Moyers B. Healing and the Mind. New York, NY: Doubleday; 1993:257–314.




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