Acupuncture

From SkepticWiki

1 Definition
- 1.1 Origins
- 1.2 Quotations
2 Discussion
3 Related Topics
4 References
5 Comments

[edit] Definition

Acupuncture is a form of medicine based on sticking needles into people.

Its theoretical basis is that health and sickness are caused by the good or bad flow of chi through the body, in particular along the twelve major meridians of the body (though some authorities list fourteen or even more) which run from head to toe along the body, and which are associated with the bladder, gallbladder, heart, large intestine, small intestine, kidneys, liver, lungs, spleen, stomach, pericardium, and "triple heater". It is necessary to translate this last term word for word from the Chinese because there is no such thing as the "triple heater".

The acupuncturist treats the ailments of these various parts by inserting needles at points lying on these meridians, known simply as "acupuncture points" and manipulating the needles to increase or decrease the flow of chi along that meridian.

Variants on acupuncture include ear acupuncture, the name of which is self-explanatory, electroactupuncture, in which the needle carries a small electric current, and moxibustion, in which moxa (the plant commonly known as mugwort, Artemesia vulgaris) is set smouldering on the appropriate acupuncture point.

[edit] Origins

Unlike many remedies which appeal to the New Age, acupuncture is genuinely ancient and genuinely Oriental. The earliest surviving text dealing with acupuncture is the Chinese text The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, dating from about 300 BC.

Acupuncture lost ground in China from the seventeenth century onwards, with the introduction of Western scientific ideas. It regained some of its prestige during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, and is widely practiced in modern China. It became popular in the West from the 1960s onwards.

Although the basics of acupuncture have remained the same since ancient times, the system has suffered the inevitable mutations and accretions: the original system, for example, had 365 acupuncture points: some modern systems catalog as many as 2000.

[edit] Quotations

[edit] Discussion

Sticking needles into people can cause the release into the bloodstream of endorphins and natural steroids such as cortisol. So acupuncture may, fortuitously, have some use in the management of chronic pain.

As to the wider claims of acupuncturists, it seems on the face of it unlikely, given the unscientific basis of their claims, that they can have much effect on a patient's physiology by manipulating the flow of a non-existent substance around imaginary meridians.

It is noticeable that acupuncturists tend chiefly to advertise their abilities to treat precisely those ailments which are chronic but intermittently better or worse (headaches, acne), or which have a strong psychosomatic element (impotence, asthma), or which are guaranteed to clear up rapidly anyway (the common cold), and so (no doubt unwittingly for the most part) are profitting mainly from the placebo effect and regression to the mean.