Study of the Heat Transfer Effect in Moxibustion Practice

Abstract

“First you use the needle (acupuncture), then the fire (moxibustion), and finally the herbs” (Tsuei, 1996) has been well known in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In fact, moxibustion has played an important role in Asia for many years (Zhang, 1993). In Huang Di Nei Jing (Maoshing (translator), 1995), we can find that when needle can’t do a job, moxa is a better choice. Moxibustion rather than acupuncture was commonly known to be able to alleviate pains due to some severe diseases, manifested by vacuity cold and Yang deficiency. In clinical studies, many experiments have confirmed that moxibustion is capable of enhancing immunity, improving circulation, accommodating nerve, elevating internal secretion and adjusting respiration, digestion and procreation et al. (Wu et al., 2001; Liu, 1999). However, moxibustion has not been accepted as the modern therapy because of the lack of standard practice procedures. In addition, moxibustion is subject to the danger of scalding patients. More effort needs therefore to be made so as to increase our knowledge about the moxibustion and, hopefully, these research endeavors can be useful for the future instrumentation and standardization of the moxibustion by some emerging modern scientific techniques. The existing moxibustion techniques can be separated into the direct and indirect moxibustion therapies. In direct moxibustion, the ignited cone-shaped moxa is normally placed on the skin surface near acupoints (Fig. 1(a)). Direct moxibustion can be further categorized into the scarring and non-scarring two types. During the scarring moxibustion, the ignited moxa is placed on the top of an acupoint till a time it burns out completely. This moxibustion type may lead to a localized scarring or blister. In non-scarring moxibustion, moxa cone is also burned directly on the skin. Such an ignited moxa will be removed when it may cause an intense pain (moxa temperature should be under 60 oC). Usually, this treatment will result in a small red circular mark on the local area of the skin surface. Indirect moxibustion becomes more popular currently because of its lower risk of leading to pain or burning. A common way of administering the therapeutic properties of moxibustion is to place, for example, a piece of ginger, garlic, salt or pepper in between the burning moxa and the skin. One can also ignite a moxa stick, which is placed at a location that is closed to but not in contact with the proper acupoint (about 2cm to skin surface normally), for several minutes until the color of the skin surface near this acupoint turns red.