Study on acupoint selection rules for headache based on the earliest recorded literature of ancient acupuncture prescriptions

Abstract

Through collecting the prescriptions for headache treated with acupuncture in Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic) till the Qing Dynasty, the literature traceability research is undertaken to determine the extant literature documents with the earliest recorded acupuncture prescriptions and identify the repeated ones in later generations; and then, the acupoint use frequency in the earliest recorded literature of acupuncture prescriptions in the extant documents and acupuncture treatment verses is analyzed separately. It is found that the most of acupoints of high use frequency are overlapped between such two kinds of literature. By integrating and classifying the same or similar contents of acupuncture prescription articles between headache and migraine, the common characteristics and acupoint selections are extracted, the regularity of acupoint selection is explored in view of etiology, complication and affected location, and the attributed fourteen meridians are analyzed statistically in terms of the acupoints in the earliest recorded prescriptions. Finally, the experience of ancient medical masters in acupuncture treatment for headache is obtained.