Acupuncture and postoperative vomiting in children.

Sir,—For acupuncture analgesia to be developed from stimulation of an acupuncture point, an intact nervous system is required. It has been shown [1-3] that injection of local anaesthetic to the muscle beneath the acupuncture point abolishes and prevents the development of acupuncture analgesia. This abolition of acupuncture analgesia is related to the blocking of De Qi sensation. It is also accepted generally that acupuncture analgesia is of slow onset and long duration and there is therefore an induction period required for stimulation [4]. The paper by Yentis and Bissonnette [5] would therefore confirm both the need for an intact nervous system, as all their patients were anaesthetized before the acupuncture point was stimulated, and the need for an induction period.