Nomenclature

How points are named and coded, and where the codes stop agreeing with each other.

The following 15 pages are in Nomenclature.

Back-shu and front-mu points

The back-shu points on the bladder channel and the front-mu points on the chest and abdomen, paired organ by organ with their spinal levels, from the Lingshu, the Maijing and the WHO location standard.

Classical · Practitioner · 7 min

Command points and the four gates

The four-line verse that assigns ST36, BL40, LU07 and LI04 to four regions of the body, the Ming texts that record it, and how the Lingshu's four gates came to mean LI04 with LV03.

Classical and modern · Practitioner · 9 min

Extra points

Points outside the fourteen channels: how the WHO chose its 48, how China lists them, and how one point can carry three codes.

Classical and modern · Practitioner · 6 min

Five transport points

The jing-well, ying-spring, shu-stream, jing-river and he-sea points of the twelve channels, as the Lingshu, the Nanjing and the Zhenjiu jiayi jing assign them, with the five-phase and mother-child rules built on them.

Classical · Practitioner · 9 min

Heavenly star points

Ma Danyang's twelve heavenly star points: the eleven-point verse of the 1329 Yulong jing, the twelfth point and the attribution added in Ming editions, and what the verse lists each point for.

Classical · Practitioner · 9 min

Influential and confluent points

The eight influential points of the Nanjing, the eight confluent points that open the extraordinary vessels, and the lower he-sea points of the six fu from the Lingshu.

Classical · Practitioner · 7 min

Measuring in cun

How point locations are written in proportional and finger cun, what the WHO and Chinese standards set out, and what studies found when they compared the two.

Classical and modern · Practitioner · 10 min

Point location references

The two standards that fix where acupuncture points lie, the textbooks beside them, where the standards part company, and what studies found when practitioners marked the same points.

Classical and modern · Practitioner · 8 min

Point names in translation

How a point's Chinese name is built, what the WHO's 1993 explanations say each name means, and how far the English renderings differ.

Classical and modern · Anyone · 7 min

Reading a point code

What LI04, XH03 and MS06 each mean, and where AcuiQ spells them differently.

Classical and modern · Anyone · 6 min

Source, connecting and cleft points

The yuan-source, luo-connecting and xi-cleft points of every channel, from the Lingshu, the Nanjing and the Zhenjiu jiayi jing, including the great connecting vessel of the spleen and the clefts of four extraordinary vessels.

Classical · Practitioner · 8 min

The channel system, counted

Fourteen channels, 361 points, and the 412 more that sit outside them.

Classical · Anyone · 8 min

The Chinese auricular standard

GB/T 13734-2008, China's national standard for ear points: its 93 points in 10 regions, how its zone codes are built, the rules it sets for names, what it changed from 1992, and the history of names in its annexes.

Classical and modern · Practitioner · 11 min

The thirteen ghost points

Sun Simiao's list of thirteen points for the hundred evils, from the Beiji qianjin yaofang, with the order of needling, the ghost names, the modern points later texts matched them to, and where those matches disagree.

Classical · Practitioner · 10 min

Window of heaven points

The five regions of Tianyou named in Lingshu chapter 21, the ten neck and armpit points listed in its chapter 2, and how the ten came to be called window of heaven points in the twentieth century.