Best Practice Acupuncture : its use in medicine

dpearl('Iitsa.LcsffcduL A story is told in China about a peasant who had worked as a maintenance man in a newly established Western missionary hospital. When he retired to his remote home village, he took with him some hypodermic needles and lots of antibiotics. Heput up a shingle, and wheneversomeone came to him with a fever, he injected the patient with the wonder drugs. A remarkable percentage ofthese people got well, despite thefact that this practitioner ofWestern medicine knew next to nothing about what he was doing. In the West today, much ofwhatpassesfor Chinese medicine is not very differentfrom the so-called Western medicinepracticed by this Chinese peasant. Out ofa complex medical system, only the bare essentials ofacupuncture technique have reached the West. Patients often get wellfrom such treatment because acupuncture, like Western antibiotics, is strong medicine. But the theoretical depth andfull clinicalpotential ofChinese medicine remain virtually unknown.'