Tesearch On History Of Acupuncture And The Famous Experts’ Academic Inheritance In Ling’ Nan Region

BackgroundMore and more attention has been attached nationally to the inheritance and further development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the interest people hold towards different academic schools of TCM is on the rise. A great deal of achievements has been made in the research of acupuncture field in Ling’nan region since it serves as the pioneer of bringing TCM out to the world. After being included in the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", acupuncture shows us an even promising future. Nevertheless, the research results available now fails to summarize the process history of acupuncture and the academic thoughts of acupuncturists of Ling’nan region as a whole, instead, the research often focused on limited book, acupuncturist, or certain treatment of certain stage. Although some scholars tried to present a thorough picture on periodical journals, they were not able to sum up the law of acupuncture’s development in a systematic way.ObjectivesThis paper aims to deeply and comprehensively conducting a systematic study on the history of Ling’nan acupuncture, analyzing the inheritance pattern of importance academic thoughts, summarizing the its law of process, the innovation and featured diagnostic and treating techniques created by acupuncturists of Ling’nan region, and finding out defects existing in the process of inheritance so as to discuss possible ways of improving them and bring the development of Ling’nan acupuncture to a higher level.MethodsThis paper focuses mainly on studying literatures about acupuncture and is supplemented by interviewing some famous contemporary experts or their students of this field in Ling’nan region so as to collect the most accurate information directly. With deep respect towards the great contribution our ancient acupuncturists had made in this field, those who, in Ling’nan region, left us with written works to check will be analyzed in this paper, while for acupuncturists of Ming Dynast and down, only those in Guangdong Province, the core area of Ling’nan region, who stood out will be selected.1. Inclusion criteria for literature1.1 Referential booksReferential data quoted in this paper mainly cover acupuncture books of Ling’nan region, the acupuncture section of comprehensive TCMC books of Ling’nan region and chorography which recorded the life experience of acupuncturists of Ling’nan region. Referential books are listed as follows: "Ling’nan Acupuncture Experience Set", "Chinese Medicine of Ling’nan Region", "Medical History of Ling’nan Region", "Ling’nan Medicine And Culture", "Medical Work of Different Provinces in China", "Medical Books of Ling’nan Region", "Qiong zhou County Annals", "Medical Development of Ling’nan Region", "Lingnan Masters Of Chinese Medicine", "Acupuncture Theories", "Zhou Hou Bei Ji Fang", "Cai Ai Bian Yi", "You You Ji Cheng", "Medical Works for Children’s Illnesses", "Jin Rui Acupuncture ", "Jin Three-Needle Therapy", "Clinical Q&A And Inllustrations of Jin Three-Needle", "Clinical Acupoints Prescription of Jin Three-Needle", "Selected Acupuncture Cases,of Si TuLing" and "Chen Quan Xin Acupuncture Experience Set", "Ling’nan Traditional Natural-moxibustion Therapy" etc.1.2 Periodical LiteratureTo develop my own database by searching other authoritative databases like China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Medical Citation Index, Wan Fang Data and Chinese Scientific Journals database with key words like, acupuncture, Ling’nan acupuncture or name of Ling’nan acupuncturists etc.1.3 On-line RetrievalTo look up for relevant national policies through on-line retrieval.2. Inclusion criteria for AcupuncturistsDue to limited time and energy, this paper only covers the academic thoughts and inheritance of some representative acupuncturists. The inclusion criteria vary in different times. As for ancient acupuncturists, the inclusion criteria are relatively loose, those who had far-reaching influences and medical works about acupuncture are all included in this given the fact that ancient data passed down was quite limited; as for doctors of the period of the Republic of China, only the most influential ones with great medical works are included in the paper; as for the contemporary time, acupuncturists are selected who bear the honorary title of’famous old doctors of TCM in Guangdong Province’and famous doctors of TCM in Guangdong Province or who have founded a national experts studio of TCM for their academic inheritance. Acupuncturists are included in this paper as long as they meet one of the above mentioned criteria given that some of the requirements overlap.Under this standard,7 ancient chinese doctors were screened out as follows:Ge Hong,Bao Gu,Liu Fang,Qiu Rui,Ye GuangZuo,Ye ChaShan and Chen FuZheng,6 of the period of the Republic of China are Zeng Tianzhi, Zhou Zhongfang, Liang Xiangyan, Chen Zhuping and Su Tianyou,12 of contemporary period are Si Tuling, Han Shaokang, Pang Zhongyan, Jin Rui, Chen Quanxin, Zhang Jiawei, Liu Bingquan, Lin Xiufen, Yuan Yexuan, Qiu Hanchun, Liang Qinglin and Lai Xinsheng. A brief introduction is also made to some other well-known acupunc tur i s t s.contentsThis paper covers the following aspects:the time background of the development of Ling’nan acupuncture, the life experience of famous acupuncturists and their academic thoughts and inheritance and distinctive diagnosis and treatment techniques of Ling’nan region. It could be found that many scholars have dug deeply in aspects mentioned above; therefore, this paper aims at summing up the law and distinctive features of Ling’nan acupuncture and discussing the academic inheritance of Ling’nan medicine as a whole.Results1. According to the distribution rule of Lingnan acupuncturists, it can come to a conclusion that the core zone of Ling’nan acupuncture has always been rooted in Pearl River Delta, especially in eastern and western Guangdong, only with northern Guangdong having a long road to catch on.2. By comparing the ancient and present data of acupuncture and moxibustion, we find that the distinctive practice of moxibustion is not only recorded in ancient medical works, but also applied skillfully by present acupuncturists (like professor Si Tuling); however, it seems that further development of moxibustion has reached it bottle-neck because of some drawbacks of its own and the competition from other treatments like Chinese material medica and acupuncture etc.3. In ancient times, learning and teaching of acupuncture was limited mainly between father and son or between masters and apprentices; however, ever since the beginning of the Republic of China, people could learn acupuncture in college as long as they passed the entrance examination and the father-and-son pattern has been replaced gradually by diversified forms, for example, post graduate education (where one tutor may carry many students), famous doctor’s studio and unique medicine inheritance (Ling’nan medicine e. g.) etc. nowadays, international exchange has been well-received as a brand-new way of popularizing acupuncture.4. Acupuncture stands out in Ling’nan region with distinctive treatment methods like bee needle therapy, pricking therapy and dog-days moxibustion of Ling’nan region.5. Ling’nan medicine innovates itself on the basis of classics and keeps enriching itself with modern technology, which guarantees a promising effect. ConclusionAs one of the unique branch of Traditional Chinese Medicien (TCM), Ling’nan medicine stands out with its distinct regional features in which acupuncture plays an important role. The nine types of needles used currently were invented by generations of acupuncturists of the very Ling’nan region. By digging into such classics as Huangdi’s.Classics on Internal Medicine and extensively collecting unique and effective treatment among-common people, they have compiled a lot of medical books about acupuncture which bridge the traditional classics and the current practice and therefore help the development of special yet practical Ling’nan medicine. Located at Pearl River Delta region and being adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, Guangdong Province serves as the core of Ling’nan and Southeast Asia region and hence boasts particular advantages in bringing TCM out to the world. It is affirmative that Guangdong is about to play an important role in transmitting and popularizing Ling’nan medicine and even TCM as a whole.