Theory
The frame the prescriptions were written in, and what it means for what you can look up.
The following 16 pages are in Theory.
Theory pages
Acupuncture in the West
The documents that carried acupuncture into Europe and North America, from ten Rhijne's 1683 treatise to the 1971 Reston report, the 1997 NIH statement and WHO's lists, and what each said.
Modern research · Anyone · 9 min
Ashi points
Tender sites needled where they are found: the Lingshu's rule of taking the painful place as the point, Sun Simiao's name for it, the WHO definition, how trials record a point with no code, and the dispute over trigger points.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 10 min
Causes of disease
The three categories Chinese medicine sorts causes into – the six excesses, the seven emotions, and the causes that are neither – as the WHO terminologies define them.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
Channel sinews and divergent channels
The secondary pathways of the Lingshu beside the twelve channels: the sinews of chapter 13, the divergences of chapter 11, the connecting vessels of chapter 10 and the skin regions of the Suwen, and what modern studies have done with them.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 9 min
Common patterns
Qi stagnation, qi deficiency, blood deficiency, qi and blood deficiency, dampness and bi, as the WHO terminologies and ICD-11 name and describe them.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 9 min
Patterns, symptoms and what you can look up
Why a symptom index for acupuncture holds things that are not symptoms.
Classical · Anyone · 4 min
Qi, blood and body fluids
What Chinese medical theory means by qi and its named kinds, blood, the jin and ye fluids, essence and spirit, as the WHO terminology defines them.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The classical texts
The books the acupuncture point system descends from, from the Mawangdui silk texts to the Zhenjiu dacheng of 1601: when each was written, by whom, and what it added.
Classical · Anyone · 8 min
The eight principles
Interior and exterior, cold and heat, deficiency and excess, yin and yang: how the WHO terminologies define the four pairs, where the scheme came from, and what agreement studies have measured.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 9 min
The extraordinary vessels
The eight vessels outside the twelve channels, their courses as the WHO terminology defines them, and how the Nanjing and Li Shizhen describe what they do.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The five phases
Wood, fire, earth, metal and water: what the WHO terminology correlates with each, the engendering and restraining cycles, where the theory came from, and how it chooses points.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The four examinations
What looking, listening and smelling, asking and palpation each record, as WHO's terminologies define them, and how often practitioners examining the same patient agree.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 11 min
The six stages and the four levels
The Shanghan lun's six stages, the warm disease school's four levels and Wu Jutong's three jiao: what each sorts, where it came from, how acupuncture authors use it, and what research has tested.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 9 min
The zang-fu organs
The five zang, six fu and extraordinary fu of Chinese medical theory, what the WHO terminology says each does, and why the theory’s Spleen is not the spleen of anatomy.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
Warm disease and epidemics
The warm disease school from Wu Youxing's Treatise on Pestilence of 1642 to China's COVID-19 treatment plans, as historians, systematic reviews and trials report it.
Classical and modern · Anyone · 9 min
Yin and yang
How the Suwen uses yin and yang, the four relationships the WHO terminology names, and how the pair sorts the organs, the channels and the eight principles.
Classical · Anyone · 8 min