Anatomical Roots of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture
摘要
The earliest historic reference to a dissection of a human cadaver is found in the biography of Emperor Wang Mang 王莾 who in 16 C.E. ordered the medical dissection of the body of a rebel named Wang Sun-Ching. (Occidental anatomy began only 1500 years later.) Measurements were made of his internal organs, and bamboo rods were inserted into his blood vessels in order to discover where they begin and where they end for the purpose of a better understanding of how to cure diseases. Similar anatomical dissections are mentioned in chapter 12 of the Huang-Di Nei-Jing Ling-Shu 黃帝內經靈柩 entitled Jing-Shui 經水. The ancient Chinese characters for body dissections given here are the same as in modern Chinese anatomy, namely Jie-Pou 解剖. The courses of the pathways as laid out in chapter 10 of the Ling-Shu-Jing are basic for acupuncture and could well be the result of such dissections. Otherwise it cannot be explained why ancient Chinese physicians were able to denominate the respective viscera properly with names still in use today, how they could locate them topographically in correct position, and link them to the vessel pathways leading to the periphery of the human body. The majority of Western acupuncturists adhere to far-fetched assumptions about ”meridians”, ”channels”, ”points” and ”energy” which have never existed. That is why modern acupuncture finally needs an anatomical nomenclature for daily practice and scientific research including all structures involved which are still the same as some 2000 years ago.