Study On Physical Characteristics Of Moxibustion

Moxibustion is an important cure of traditional Chinese medical whose materialis mainly made of artemisia argyi dried in the shade. Artemisia argyi (Artemisiaargyi Levl. et Vant), herbaceous perennid plant, belongs to Asteraceae Artemisiavegetation and is also called Bingtai, mugwort, combustion grass, Qiai, Xiangai, etc.The curative effect of moxibustion includes three aspects in mechanism: drug effect,thermo-effect and infrared radiation effect. The drug effect and thermo-effect affectnot only on skin, meridians and acupuncture points, but also on respiratory tract orthermoreceptor to generate whole body regulation, which are the guarantees ofcurative effect. Recent research on infrared radiation effect shows that the infraredradiation, especially near-infrared radiation, can penetrate epidermis and transmitalong main and collateral channels to generate deep and long-range stimulation,which can largely enrich the content of moxibustion.In order to study the wavelength of infrared and radiation sources distribution,this work established a measurement methodology:(1) Bury single thermocouple inmoxa stick to measure the highest combustion temperature;(2) Drag singlethermocouple to measure burning stability;(3) Respectively measure the center,radius midpoint and lateral of transverse section combustion temperature;(4) Dragthree thermocouples embedded in above three points and depicttemperature-space-time curves. This work directly examinated the temperature datasand reflects the wavelength of infrared radiation distribution and its variation withtime through Wien’s Displacement Law. The contents of our work will be shown asbelow:We established a measurement methodology of moxibustion temperature andinfrared characteristics which could comprehensively reflect the burning moxa rolltemperature characteristic and infrared wavelength distribution. This methodologycould also support the quality evaluation of moxa sticks.We also standardized the measurement instrument and applied for a patent forutility model "moxibustion temperature measuring instrument". The instrument canbe widely used for its convenience high accuracy.Our work respectively determined the burning temperature and infraredwavelength of moxa stick from different manufacturers (5series) and differentstorage years (3series). The results showed that samples from Qichun (HerbalMedicine St. Qichun Technology Co. Ltd.) ranked first in comparison andone-year-moxa sticks performanced best in thier series. The moxa sticks qualityevaluation indicators should also consist of other factors, and only in this way, canscientific evaluation system for the quality of moxa stick be established.Because of the moxa volatile oil and other components are material basis ofmoxibustion, we also studied on the Ubbelohde viscosity of volatile oil, the chemicalcomposition of volatile oil from different extraction methods and the extraction andcontent determination of total tannic acid and flavonoids on one-year and three-year artemisia argyi. Altough these works above are relatively independent, some of themcan be incorporated into the moxa stick quality evaluation system.