Medical acupuncture: Encyclopedia II - Medical acupuncture - History of medical acupuncture

Medical acupuncture - History of medical acupuncture

Medical acupuncture was created for Western practitioners such as medical doctors, physiotherapists and osteopaths who wish to practice acupuncture without the lengthy study of traditional Chinese Medicine theory which is usually required for acupuncturists. This Western version of acupuncture is lesser known than the traditional Chinese, but is increasing in popularity as otherwise mainstream medical practitioners in the West are taking more interest in alternative medicine. Medical acupuncture can also been seen as an attempt by orthodox Western medicine to understand the effects of acupuncture from a scientific perspective rather than within the paradigm of Chinese folk beliefs. The British Medical Acupuncture Society publishes a quarterly peer reviewed journal which is listed on Medline and Index Medicus Acupuncture in Medicine.

The term "acupuncture" is a Western one, derived from Latin and meaning "puncturing with needles". It was first used by the Dutchman Wilhelm Ten Rijn, who wrote a monograph in Latin on the subject (De Acupunctura) at the end of the seventeenth century. Traditional Chinese medicine had an influence on Europe due to exchange via the Silk Road trade routes. Goods and ideas both travelled between cultures in this way.

Acupuncture continued to attract interest from Western doctors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries though generally without much reference to its Oriental roots. This interest has continued down to the present, receiving considerable interest after President Nixon's visit to China in 1972, when surgeons witnessed surgical operations being carried out using acupuncture analgesia instead of anaesthetics. As a result of this interest, traditional Chinese medicine has become a global phenomena. With this interest came a desire by medical professionals to learn acupuncture without the difficult theory, which includes Taoist cosmology and sometimes borders on shamanism and mysticism, all of which can be difficult for Westerners to understand. In the United Kingdom most practioners of acupuncture are medical acupuncturists, either medical doctors or allied health professionals. The. British Medical Acupuncture Societyprovides training for medical doctors and allied health professionals. Many countries have similar organisations and there is an International Council of Medical Acupunturists ICMART which represents medical acupuncturists from over 80 countries.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of medical acupuncture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki