The establishment of recent knowledge of acupoint anatomy and its impact

Abstract

ABSTRACT The content of acupuncture points has been a long concerned issue in China. The ancients’ descriptions of acupuncture points in medical literature were all based on their observation of the body’s surface, and they didn’t have the modern concept of “acupuncture points” independent of body tissue. In modern times, with the foundation of anatomy in China, physicians of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) gradually developed the thinking paradigm of knowing the body through anatomy. Meanwhile, the acupuncture circle in Japan combined anatomy with their understanding of acupuncture points and added anatomical content to the entries on acupuncture points. After the translation and introduction of Japanese acupuncture literature, their understanding of anatomical acupuncture added to the Chinese physicians’ acupuncture knowledge in the Republican time. During this process, elite physicians and educators in the acupuncture community played a vital role. According to the Actor-Network Theory, the construction of anatomical knowledge of acupuncture points in the Republic of China resulted from multi-factor interaction. In the meantime, the conception of acupuncture point anatomy changed people’s original cognition of acupuncture points and resulted in the paradigm shift in TCM physicians’ body cognition.