Was acupuncture invented as a result of repeated empirical experience?
It has been generally believed that acupuncture was invented as a result of repeated empirical experience, evolving as a natural outgrowth of daily life in ancient times. According to this theory, primitive people noticed cases in which physical problems were relieved following an unrelated injury, leading to the discovery of the principle that injury to a certain part of the body can alleviate or even cure a pre-existing disease or disorder in a different part of the body. It is thought that with this discovery,the Chinese ancestors eventually started to use stones, animal bones, or pieces of bamboo to deliberately induce injury to relieve physical problems. Here is a fictional story describing how this process may have worked:
"Long long ago a man went to the mountain to cut firewood. Because of carelessness his great toe was damaged. There was a little bleeding, and his chronic headache by chance disappeared. He paid no attention to this phenomenon at all. His headache recurred later on and was relieved again by accidental injury of his big toe. After the second experience, the man noticed that the relief of his headache might be related to the injury of his big toe. Later whenever his headache recurred, he injured his big toe and deliberately let some blood. Consequently his headache was relieved each time. This is the story of the discovery of the acupoint LR1-Dadun."1
If acupuncture did in fact gradually develop through such a process of repeated empirical experience, many similar accounts concerning the discovery of the acupoints and their properties should appear throughout China's four thousand years of recorded history. However, following extensive research, I was only able to find one similar example in the immense canon of Chinese medical documents and literature. This case was recorded by Dr. Zhang Zhihe (c. 1156-1228 AD), one of the four eminent physicians of the Jin and Yuan dynasties (1115-1368 AD), who specialized in blood-letting therapy:
"Bachelor Zhao Zhongwen had an acute eye problem when he went to take part in the imperial examination. His eyes were red and swollen, accompanied by blurred vision and severe pain. He even wanted to die because of the unbearable pain. One day when he was in a teahouse with his friend, a stovepipe suddenly fell and hit Zhao in the forehead, causing a wound about 3-4 cun at length and letting a lot of dark purple blood. The miracle occurred when the bleeding stopped. Zhao's eyes became comfortable; he could see the road and went home himself. The next day he could recognize the ridge of the roof. He was fine several days later. This case was cured with no intentional treatment but only accidental trauma."2
Actually, the above case at most demonstrates the discovery of blood-letting therapy, which has some essential differences from acupuncture. The point of blood-letting therapy is to take away a certain amount of blood. But when puncturing the body with solid needles in acupuncture (as differentiated from injecting medicine with a syringe needle), nothing is added to or subtracted from the body.
Blood-letting therapy is universal. Throughout recorded history, people around the world have had similar experiences with the beneficial results of accidental injury, and have developed healing methods based on the principle that injuring and inducing bleeding in one part of the body can relieve problems in another area. The ancient Greeks and Romans developed venesection and cupping based on the discovery that bleeding is beneficial in cases such as fever, headache, and disordered menstruation3.Europeans during the Middle Ages used blood-letting as a panacea for the prevention and treatment of disease. Detailed directions were given concerning the most favorable days and hours for blood-letting, the correct veins to be tapped, the amount of blood to be taken, and the number of bleedings. Blood was usually taken by opening a vein with a lancet, but sometimes by blood-sucking leeches or with the use of cupping vessels4. Blood-letting using leeches is still practiced in some areas of Europe and the Middle East.
However, nowhere did these blood-letting methods develop into a detailed and comprehensive system comparable to that of acupuncture. If acupuncture did indeed arise from repeated empirical experience of accidental injury, it should have developed all over the world, rather than just in China. This indicates that repeated experience of accidental injury was not a primary factor in the development of acupuncture.
Notes and References:
1. Sun Yu, Elementary Knowledge of Formal Logic (Xingshi Luoji Jichu Zhishi形式逻辑基础知识). Lanzhou: Gansu People's Press, 1980, p. 206 .
2. Zhang Zhihe (1156-1228 AD), Confucians' Duties to Their Parents (Rumen Shiqin儒门事亲). Quoted in Selection and Annotation of Medical Cases Treated by Past Dynasties' Eminent Acupuncturists (Lidai Zhenjiu Mingjia Yian Xuanzhu历代针灸名家医案选注), ed. Li Fufeng. Harbin: Heilongjiang Science and Technology Publishing House, 1985, p. 143.
3. Numerous examples are found in the Hippocratic corpus. "When in fevers there is deafness, if there be a flow of blood from the nose, or the bowels become disordered, it cures the diseases." "When menstruation is suppressed, a flow of blood from the nose is a good sign." "When the head aches and the pain is very severe, a flow of pus, water or blood, by the nostrils, ears or mouth, cures the trouble." Hippocrates, 8 volumes, English translation by W. H. S. Jones, et al. Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1923, Vol. IV, pps. 151, 167, 183. The quoted version was reprinted in 1995.
4. Roberto Margotta, The History of Medicine, New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1996, p. 66.
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