?Acupuncture Bronze Man──The world’s earliest medical human model
Acupuncture is a magical and unique medical technology created by the ancient Chinese people. It does not require medication, but only uses acupuncture or moxibustion to burn one or several parts of the patient's body to achieve the purpose of curing diseases.
Acupuncture sprouted in the prehistoric Neolithic Age. Prehistoric people had a difficult life, and injuries to their skin and flesh were common. Injuries bleed, and abscesses and pain often appear around the wounds, but after a while, pus, blood or pure pus flows out. After they drain out, the lumps gradually disappear and the pain is relieved. After accumulating more experience like this, people will consciously use sharp and pointed tools to puncture or uncover abscessed skin, squeeze out pus and blood, and treat diseases. The tools originally used to pierce or cut the skin were pointed and edged stones found in the mountains, called meteorites. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas - Dongshan Classic" says: "Gao's Mountain" has many proverb (needle) stones under it. ?Modern Guo Pu’s comment: ?Bianstone acupuncture is used to treat carbuncles. Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" of the Eastern Han Dynasty explains the word "Bianstone" as follows: "Bianstone" is used to stab diseases with stones. ?So, Bianstone sting disease can be said to be the origin of acupuncture. Prehistoric people discovered during the practice of making fires for warmth that wrapping hot mud or hot stones with plant leaves and placing them on the affected areas could relieve pain and even eliminate diseases. Heating mud or stones took a long time. Later, people discovered that lighting branches or hay and applying warm heat to one or certain parts of the human body's surface could cure more diseases. This opened the door to the development of moxibustion and cautery in later generations. First of all.
The branches and hay used for moxibustion are not easy to preserve, but the stone needles used for acupuncture are easy to preserve. With the development of productivity, medical tool manufacturing technology is increasingly improving. After stone needles, ancestors made jade needles, bone needles, bamboo needles, pottery needles, copper needles, steel needles, and gold needles. In the "Century of Emperors" written by Huangfu Mi, a medical scientist during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there is a legend that Fuxi made nine needles to treat diseases. The "nine needles" mentioned here refer to different styles of needles. In the 1980s, bone needles were unearthed from the Jiahu Neolithic cultural site found in Wuyang County, Henan Province. It has a history of more than 8,000 years. In the 1950s, stone needles and bone needles of different shapes were unearthed from the Neolithic cultural site of Banpo Village in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. Some had one end sharpened and the other flat; some had both ends. sharpened. They have a history of five to six thousand years. These unearthed Russian needles and bone needles not only prove that acupuncture originated in the prehistoric Neolithic Age, but also prove that the legend that Fuxi made nine needles to treat diseases has a certain basis.
At first, the ancestors used acupuncture, moxibustion and cautery to treat diseases based entirely on experience. With the continuous accumulation of experience, people's understanding of the principles of acupuncture therapy gradually deepened. Around the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Chinese medical scientists proposed the meridian theory, which laid the theoretical foundation for acupuncture therapy.
According to the meridian theory, meridians are spread throughout all parts of the human body and are responsible for transporting qi and blood throughout the body and communicating with the inside and outside of the body. Meridians are not only distributed on the surface of the body, but also enter the human body and are connected with the internal organs. Qi and blood circulate in the meridians over and over again, running in an endless cycle like a ring. The main trunk lines running among them are called meridians, and the side branches are called collaterals. There are many acupoints along the path of the meridians. Acupoints are also called "holes", "acupoints" or "meridian points". They are all control organs of the context system. Each acupuncture point is located at a certain part of the body surface, just like a railway policeman on duty, each responsible for a certain path. When a person suffers from a certain disease, a certain path in the human body is blocked and Qi and blood cannot be transported. *** The corresponding acupoints can adjust and clear the blocked path. Once the blockage is eliminated and Qi and blood can flow smoothly, the person's disease will be cured. Healed.
During the Warring States Period, the "Huangdi Neijing" compiled by the Western Han Dynasty summarized the main meridians of the human body into twelve, called the Twelve Meridians. He also recorded the circulation location of each meridian and the distribution of 160 meridian points, and at the same time discussed and summarized the relationship between meridian, disease and treatment, thus laying a theoretical foundation for acupuncture.
Meridian theory and acupuncture therapy continued to develop in ancient my country. Huang Fumi, a famous doctor in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, compiled an acupuncture monograph "Acupuncture and Moxibustion A and B Jing" based on the experience of his predecessors and his own practice. This book systematically organized the acupuncture degrees recognized by predecessors, and provided the name and location of each acupoint. , functions, and positioning methods were reviewed and corrected one by one. At the same time, a large number of new acupuncture points that were not recorded in the classics were added.
There are 349 acupuncture points identified in the "Acupuncture Classic A and B", including 300 double acupoints and 49 single acupoints, which is 189 more acupoints than the "Huangdi Neijing". This is an epoch-making work that influenced Chinese acupuncture.
The key to acupuncture therapy is whether the acupuncture points selected are symptomatic and whether the location of the acupuncture points is accurate. Choosing the right acupuncture points is by no means an easy task. Because although acupuncture points are distributed on the body surface, they do not have obvious signs. Moreover, people are different in height, short, fat and thin, so it is difficult to find them according to fixed standards. For example, the book "Bathing in 5 Minutes ***Cures All Diseases" says: "About 3 cm below the medial malleolus is the Zhaohai point, which is the key point of the Yang pulse in the eight extra meridians." The qi of this point leads down to the soles of the feet and up to the throat. Rubbing this point is effective for insomnia, sore throat, and reproductive system diseases. ?If you give the Zhaohai point to a big man who is more than two meters tall, and if you give the Zhaohai point to a small man who is 1.5 meters, it will definitely not work, because it is about 3 centimeters below the medial malleolus. It is said that about 3 cm below the medial malleolus is the Zhaohai point. It is said for people of medium stature. How far to the left should the big man go, and how far to the right should the small man go? It is still a vague concept that is difficult to grasp. This problem seriously affects the inheritance of traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture.
In order to solve this problem, ancient Chinese medical scientists made unremitting efforts. In the Tang Dynasty, Sun Simiao, who was hailed as the "Great Doctor of the World" by the people, drew three large-scale color acupuncture wall charts. The twelve meridians on the front, back and side of the human body were drawn in five colors, and the eight extraordinary meridians were drawn in green. And put forward the method of selecting acupoints in the same body size. The so-called "Tongshen Cun Method" is to measure the positioning of acupoints according to the measurements specified by the patient's fingers. The three fingers in the middle of the patient's palm are together and the width is two inches. In this way, those who learn acupuncture can refer to the wall chart to draw the locations of meridians and odd pulses, and then use body measurements to select acupoints. This method is simple, easy to learn and easy to operate, and is very popular among acupuncture students. After that, Wang Tao, another medical scientist in the Tang Dynasty, drew twelve large-scale color acupuncture wall charts for teaching.
The emergence of large-scale color acupuncture wall charts has only initially solved the problem of acupuncture point selection. Because the wall chart is flat, it lacks three-dimensionality and realism. In the fifth year of Tiansheng reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (1027), Wang Weiyi, a medical officer in Hanlin Academy, was ordered by the imperial court to study the acupuncture meridians and acupuncture points, explain in detail the diseases and treatments for each acupoint, and compiled it into three volumes of the "Tongren Acupoint Acupuncture Illustrated Classic" as a legal document. The textbook was promulgated throughout the country. In order to accurately represent the meridian acupoints, Wang Weiyi first proposed the idea of ??using a human body model to represent the meridian acupoints. The following year, Wang Weiyi designed and presided over the casting of two bronze figures for practicing acupuncture. The size of the bronze figure is similar to that of a real person, with a hollow thorax and abdomen. The direction of the meridians and the locations of acupuncture points are cast on the surface, and the acupoints are drilled through. There are 657 acupoints on the entire bronze figure, with 354 acupoint names. The method of use is to first apply a layer of yellow wax on the surface of the copper human body, then fill the body of the copper human body with water, then put clothes on the copper human body and let students try the needle. If the acupoints are found accurately, the needle will penetrate the yellow wax, and the water in the bronze man's body will flow out from the pinholes; if the acupoints are not found accurately, the needle will not be able to penetrate at all. The acupuncture bronze man can be used to teach and learn to identify acupuncture points, and can also be used for exams to test students' academic performance. It can be seen that the acupuncture bronze figure is a medical teaching aid with lifelike image, exquisite structure, high efficiency and practicality.
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The Tiansheng Acupuncture Bronze Man of the Northern Song Dynasty is the earliest medical human model in the world. Since then, imperial hospitals and private doctors and pharmacies in the Ming and Qing dynasties have imitated it. However, most of these precious acupuncture bronze figures were damaged and lost during the war. For example, the Imperial Hospital of the Ming Dynasty cast an acupuncture bronze figure during the Zhengtong period (1436-1449). It was robbed by the Tsarist Russian army when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing in 1900. It is still stored in the Leningrad Museum in Russia.