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Acupuncture and moxibustion are two of the oldest therapeutic medical methods commonly used in China, Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries. Having originated in China, as ancient therapeutic arts backed up by 3,000 years of history, they began to become better known in the United States in 1971, when New York Times columnist James Reston reported in some detail about how doctors in China had used needles to ease his abdominal pain during and after emergency surgery.

Chinese medicine utilizes the theory that there are, running through the body, ‘invisible’ channels and networks which regulate our various physiological systems. Irregularities (blockage or narrowing) within these channels can promote the development of disease. Acupuncture and moxibustion involve inserting needles into or burning rolls of moxa (a Chinese herb) over the acupoints or along the channels and networks of “ meridians”, in order to regulate homeostasis and call the immune system into action; it is a wholistic way of healing.

Acupuncture began and developed several millennia ago, when the ancient Chinese used the Bian, a (small sharp) stone, or a small sharp animal bone, to gently prick open and/or to press on tender and sensitive areas of the body (now called acupoints) in order to treat and cure illness. Later -- following the invention of metallurgy -- bronze, iron and silver needles were devised, and came to be used, in China as medical tools in place of the original small stones or bones.

In the early stage of the Warring States (475-221 BC) the principle and order of treatment was: application of needles first, then of moxibustion, and finally of herbal decoctions. This period of time also saw the documentation of more and more acupoints and the first articulations of what came to be the system of meridians (energy channels). Some of the earliest medical treatises have been unearthed in the Han Tombs (Mawangdui, of ca. 168 BC) at Changsha in Hunan province. These works contain some of the earliest recorded references to meridians (described as The Eleven Moxibustion Meridians of the Hands and Legs, and The Eleven Moxibustion Meridians of Yin and Yang).

Another important early medical book, written even before the Han Dynasty (206-220 BC) -- Huang Di’s (the Yellow Emperor’s) Canon of Medicine -– recorded the distribution of the twelve meridians, the main acupoints, the size and actions of the nine kinds of needles and their characteristic manipulations, as well as the more general treatment principles and clinical indications and contraindications of acupuncture and moxibustion.