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The earliest text about acupuncture is from the Huang Di Nei Jing,
or 'Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic'. This is believed to have originated
as early as the second century BC. The Nei Jing compared the human body
to a miniature representation of the universe in its whole and taught
that a state of health could be achieved by balancing the body's internal
environment with the external environment of the universe.
Early European reports about acupuncture came from Jesuit missionaries
in the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact, the word acupuncture was coined
by French Jesuits, from the Latin acus (needle) and punctura (puncture).
This is until Öetzi (the mummified remains of the so-called Austrian
Iceman) shed new light on the subject. His mummified body believed to
be over 5,000 years old showed a series of tattoos which correspond to
the locations of traditional acupuncture points still used today. So it
is therefore reasonable to assume these ancient Europeans might have well
been practising the art of acupuncture earlier than previously thought!
The Öetzi time frame ads weight to the traditional Chinese beliefs
on Acupuncture being rooted in the Taoist tradition, which goes back
over some 8000 years. During this period there were many sages the most
significant being Fu Hsi.
Legend has it that Fu Hsi formulated the first two symbols, a broken
line and unbroken line by observing nature. These symbols represented
the two major forces in the universe, that of creation and reception,
yin-yang an interaction believed to form life. Fu Hsi then discovered
that when yin-yang fuse, a creative action occurs, and this gives birth
to a third aspect. Fu Hsi then pondered on how this triplicity occurs
eight times and this led to the eight trigrams and then 64 hexagrams of
the I-Ching (Book of Change). The I-Ching shaped the thinking for years
to come and every influential book on Chinese Medicine is based upon its
fundamental philosophy.
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