{"id":29850,"date":"2010-10-24T08:19:05","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T08:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/acupuncture-and-history-the-%e2%80%9cancient%e2%80%9d-therapy-that%e2%80%99s-been-around-for-several-decades\/"},"modified":"2010-10-24T08:19:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-24T08:19:05","slug":"acupuncture-and-history-the-%e2%80%9cancient%e2%80%9d-therapy-that%e2%80%99s-been-around-for-several-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/medicine\/acupuncture-and-history-the-%e2%80%9cancient%e2%80%9d-therapy-that%e2%80%99s-been-around-for-several-decades.php","title":{"rendered":"Acupuncture and history: The \u201cancient\u201d therapy that\u2019s been around for several decades"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2013 A. Hitler<\/div>\n

It seems that just about every article about acupuncture makes some reference to it having been used in China for thousands of years. The obvious reason for such a statement is to make the implication that since it\u2019s been around for so long, it must therefore also be effective. Of course, longevity doesn\u2019t argue for efficacy, otherwise everyone would likely agree that astrology is the way to chart one\u2019s life; astrology has been practiced for many more years than acupuncture.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s maddening about the acupuncture longevity myth is that it isn\u2019t true, and demonstrably so. In human medicine, \u201cneedling\u201d was illustrated in the 17th century by western observers: no points, no \u201cmeridians,\u201d just a big awl-like \u201cneedle,\u201d driven in with an ivory-handled circular hammer. In addition, the rationale for hammering these little spikes into various spots (of the practitioner\u2019s choosing) was said to be \u201cexactly the same\u201d as Greek humoral medicine (see, Carruba, RW, Bowers, JZ. The Western World\u2019s First Detailed Treatise on Acupuncture: Willem ten Rhijne\u2019s De Acupunctura. J Hist Med Allied Sci (1974) XXIX (4): 371-398).
\n<\/span>
\nThe same fallacious assertion is repeated (repeatedly) in veterinary medicine. Acupuncture proponents may assert, for example, that acupuncture is \u201c4,000 years old.\u201d While the assertion isn\u2019t true, it\u2019s also ridiculous, since the Chinese hadn\u2019t invented writing 4,000 years ago. Even if the assertion were true, there would be no way to possibly know about it, since no one could have written anything down about the practice.<\/p>\n

Regardless, recently, we published the first detailed research paper on the history of veterinary medicine in China. The paper was published in July, in the historical journal Sudhoffs Archiv (Buell, P, May, T, Ramey, D. Greek and Chinese Horse Medicine: D\u00e9ja Vu All Over Again. Sudhoffs Archiv. 2010: 94: 31-60). It is one of the first papers published that looks at the actual historical source material, and the only one that compares the veterinary medicine of ancient China to contemporary practices in the ancient world.<\/p>\n

Based on the historical source material, it can be stated that Chinese veterinary medicine isn\u2019t unique, and it isn\u2019t even particularly Chinese. That is, what is presented to the eager public as the essence of Chinese thought and practice is, in fact, just an adaptation of contemporaneous practices in Greece and the Middle East. In fact, most Chinese practices, such as bleeding, and burning at points, appear in Greek, Egyptian, and Arabic sources long before they were ever mentioned in China. Such practices first appear in China during a period of maximal western influence on China, corresponding with regular traffic on the Silk Road (during Han times, approx. 200 BCE \u2013 200 AD), as well as with the coming of Buddhism, which brought in influences from Indian traditions. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s remarkable \u2013 and particularly so in the face of all of the modern crowing about the antiquity of acupuncture in animals \u2013 that there is no reference to what can even be remotely considered as modern acupuncture in any of the pre-modern Chinese veterinary works (which deal mostly with horses, camels, and water buffalo). This may be due to incorrect translation of the Chinese word zhen, which means \u201cincision\u201d or \u201cpenetration,\u201d and also used to describe cauterization and bleeding, but which has been apparently somehow morphed into \u201cacupuncture\u201d anytime that the word appears in Chinese sources. It\u2019s absolutely clear that zhen has nothing to do with modern acupuncture, even as it\u2019s equally clear that acupuncture proponents will insist on misinterpreting the Chinese language to suit their preconceived notions.<\/p>\n

The Chinese, as with every other ancient culture, didn\u2019t have much of an idea of horse physiology, and their treatments were based on anecdote and tradition. The fact is that the Chinese didn\u2019t have any better idea about what caused conditions such as colic (abdominal distress) or foot pain than did other cultures, and they really didn\u2019t treat them much differently. Until scientific investigations came along, people didn\u2019t really know what they were doing when it came to practicing medicine. There\u2019s no reason to try to go back to such traditions; there\u2019s especially no reason to do so when they didn\u2019t exist in the first place. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it \u2013 A. Hitler It seems that just about every article about acupuncture makes some reference to it having been used in China for thousands … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicine"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}