Place your ad here
			Advertise Here		Advertise Here
Wallpapres      SMS & Jokes       Poems & Shayari        Songs Lyrics Hindi & English      Our  Hollywood       Apna Bollywood       Funny Pictures        Clip Arts        Hindu Religion       About India Yoga     Parenting       Baby Names        Art & Paintings      Gem & Jewelry       World of Dance       World of Mystery      World's Great Personalities       World's Historical Events     Reiki Therapy Acupressure      Acupuncture       Health & Exercises      Herbs & Spices       Cooking Receipies       Beauty Tips     Famous Cars      Famous Buildings       Seven Wonders  Of  The World      PETA

                                                                         HISTORY

In  China, the  practice  of  acupuncture can perhaps be traced as far back as the stone age, with the Bian shi, or sharpened stones. Stone acupuncture needles dating back to 3000 B.C.  have  been  found  by  archeologists  in Inner Mongolia. Clearer evidence exists from the  1st  millennium  BCE,  and  archeological  evidence  has  been identified with the period of the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). Forms of it are also described in  the  literature of traditional Korean medicine where it is called chimsul. It is also important in  Kampo, the  traditional  medicine system of Japan.
Recent examinations of Ötzi, a 5,000-year-old mummy found in the Alps, have identified over 50  tattoos  on his body, some of which are located on acupuncture points that would today be used to treat ailments Ötzi  suffered from. Some scientists believe that this is evidence that practices similar to acupuncture were practised  elsewhere in Eurasia during the early bronze age. According to an  article  published  in  The  Lancet  by  Dorfer et al., "We hypothesised that there might have been a medical system similar to acupuncture (Chinese Zhenjiu:  needling  and burning) that was practised in Central Europe 5,200 years ago. A treatment modality similar to acupuncture  thus appears to have been in use long before its previously known period of use  in  the  medical  tradition  of  ancient China. This raises the possibility of acupuncture having originated in the Eurasian continent  at  least  2000  years earlier than previously recognised.

Acupuncture's origins in China are uncertain. The earliest Chinese medical text that first describes acupuncture  is the Yellow  Emperor’s  Classic  of  Internal  Medicine  (History of Acupuncture)  Huangdi  Neijing,  which  was compiled around  305–204  B.C. However, the  Chinese  medical  texts (Ma-wang-tui  graves,  68 BC) do  not mention acupuncture. Some hieroglyphics have been found dating back to 1000 B.C. that may indicate  an  early use of acupuncture. Bian stones, sharp  pointed  rocks used  to  treat  diseases  in  ancient  times, have also been discovered in ruins; some scholars believe that the bloodletting for which these stones were likely used  presages certain acupuncture techniques.

According to one legend, acupuncture started in China when some soldiers who  were  wounded  by  arrows  in battle experienced a relief of pain in other parts of the body, and consequently people started experimenting with arrows ( and later needles) as therapy.

R.C. Crozier in  the  book  Traditional  medicine in modern China (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1968) says the early Chinese Communist Party expressed considerable antipathy towards  classical  forms  of  Chinese medicine, ridiculing it as superstitious, irrational and backward, and claiming t hat  it  conflicted  with  the  Party’s dedication to science as the way of progress. Acupuncture was included in this criticism. Reversing this  position, Communist Party Chairman Mao later said that "Chinese medicine and pharmacology are a great treasure  house and efforts should be made to explore them and raise them to a higher level.

Representatives were sent out across China to collect information about the  theories  and  practices  of  Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine is the formalized system of Chinese medicine that was created out of this effort. TCM combines the use of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, tui  na, and o ther  modalities. After  the Cultural Revolution, TCM instruction was incorporated into university medical curricula under the "Three Roads" policy, wherein TCM, biomedicine, and  a  synthesis  of  the  two  would  all  be  encouraged  and  permitted  to develop. After  this  time,  forms  of  classical  Chinese  medicine  other  than  TCM  were  outlawed, and  some practitioners left China.

The  first  forms  of  acupuncture to  reach  the  United States were brought by non-TCM practitioners - such as Chinese rail road workers- many employing styles that had been handed down in family lineages, or from master to apprentice (collectively known as "Classical Chinese Acupuncture").

In Vietnam, Dr. Van Nghi and colleagues used the classical Chinese medical  texts  and  applied  them  in clinical conditions without reference to political screening. They rewrote the  modern  version: Trung  E  Hoc. Van  Nghi was made the first President of the First World Congress of Chinese Medicine at Bejing in 1 988  in  recognition of his work.

In  the  1970s, acupuncture  became  vogue  in  America after American visitors to China brought back firsthand reports of patients undergoing major surgery using acupuncture as their sole form of  anesthesia. Since  then, tens of thousands of treatments are now performed in this country each year for  many  types  of  conditions  such  as back pain, headaches, infertility, stress, and many other illnesses.