Inaccurate acupuncture history

D. W. Ramey

Calabasas, CA, USA

Correspondence to: D. W. Ramey. E-mail: ponydoc{at}pacbell.net

SIR, It is unfortunate that Rheumatology elected to eschew historians of Chinese medicine for authors of a history of acupuncture [1]. Perhaps not surprisingly, the resulting article repeats some common fallacies, and includes frank inaccuracies and unsupported speculation about the history of the practice.

For example, the statement that acupuncture became ‘developed and codified’ is at odds with current scholarship. In fact, there is now a great deal of doubt about the development of acupuncture and whether or not any particular method or theory ever found broad acceptance. Similarly, comments about the Huangdi Neijing are incorrect, and the book itself, which cannot be reliably dated to 100 BCE, is mostly a compilation of petty surgery, blood-letting and massage [2]. Even the translation of the Huangdi Niejing as ‘The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine’ is entirely wrong—the title simply means the ‘Inner [esoteric] Classic of Huang Di’, Huang Di being the mythical ‘Yellow Emperor’.

Hopefully, if the history of acupuncture is considered a suitable subject for readers of Rheumatology, those who study the field of Chinese medicine will be consulted for future articles.

The author has declared no conflicts of interest.

References

  1. White A, Ernst E. A brief history of acupuncture. Rheumatology 2004;43:662–3.[Free Full Text]
  2. Lo V. The territory between life and death. Med Hist 2003;47:250–8.[ISI][Medline]
Accepted 9 July 2004





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