Acupuncture from Chinese Medicines Perspective - Essay Example

Acupuncture is an 8000 year old medicine practice which s back to the Taoist region in China. The history of acupuncture is beyond therecorded history hence the methodology of conducting it has come down through the tradition of practices and verbal mode of knowledge transfer. The people in the 8000 year old era were aware of the meditation and they would observe the flow of energy in and out of the body. These people would analyze and understand the interaction of the man with nature and the whole universe. Fu His was one of sage during this time who came up with the concept of Yin and Yang which is the considered as the fundamental of the Chinese medicine. He wrote the book I-Ching also known as book of change which had the power of shaping the thought process of any upcoming book on the Chinese medicine. The first book on the acupuncture appeared in the 204 BC during the rein of Huang Di - The yellow emperor. The books had full details on the needles to be used, acupuncture points in the Body, pathology, syndrome differentiation, treatment, diagnosis and the relationship of man with the nature. Initially, the stone needles were used to conduct the acupuncture and then the bronze, gold, silver needles were used as well. Now a days stainless steel needles are used to puncture the specific parts of the body. Acupuncture has found its use in almost all the diseases but there is a huge debate on the infection caused due to the acupuncture needles and the subsequent impact of the infections on the body. This paper attempts to analyze the acupuncture from the historical perspective and researches the modern application of acupuncture with the application, advantages, and disadvantages. The paper ends with the conclusion obtained as a result of the research and discussions. (Gabriel, 2003) Review: Acupuncture from Chinese Medicine's perspective Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine practice having history which dates back to 8000 years. During the process of evolvement, acupuncture needles were modified from using stones as the raw material to bronze, gold and silver to stainless steels. The first changeover from stone to metal needles had happened during the 421-221 BC which is also known as the Warren States era. In the year 113 BC, nine types of acupuncture needles were discussed in the book The Miraculous Pivot. Nan Jing wrote a book named Book of difficult questions on Acupuncture. During 265 - 581 AD, acupuncture was very popular during the Jin, Northern and southern dynasties as several charts and texts were developed during this time by Xu Xi family to enhance the knowledge of theory and application. Another major development during the ancient world in the fields of acupuncture came during Sui and Tang dynasties. The Tang government commissioned the services of physician Zhen Quan to revise the important text and charts of Acupuncture. Another book which collated the text and charts from other physician was written by Sun Simio. The Acupuncture came to be recognized as the separate branch of medicine during this phase i.e. 650 - 692 AD. The physicians conducting the Acupuncture were known as Acupuncturists and the Acupuncture education became mandatory and was made one the constituents of Imperial medicine bureau. The Acupuncture schools came up and they started conducting formal education on the Acupuncture theory and practice. During the period 1568-1644, also known for Ming Dynasty rule, the knowledge of Acupuncture flourished where several actions like modification of the classical texts were conducted, acupuncture techniques and medication was enhanced, Moxa sticks were developed for indirect treatment, 120 volumes of Encyclopedic work was carried on by Wang Gendung as well as principles of acupuncture and Moxibustion was written by Yang Jizhou. G. Soulie D Morant, who introduced Acupuncture to the European world draw his inspiration from these texts. In the next few years during 1644-1840, the acupuncture was suppressed and the Chinese herbal medicine was promoted by the Qing Dynasty. This was followed by another medicine style coming into picture which was the western medicine. This was brought in due to the revolution in the year 1911 and was practiced and promoted by the new Governments. During this phase the herbal and acupuncture (traditional) medicines were suppressed while the western medicine was highly promoted by the Government. This did not deter the rural population from exercising the traditional medicine as the population of China is huge and not all people could afford the western medicine. Moreover the people saw the benefit of traditional medicine and hence were keen to exercise it. The turnaround in the Acupuncture popularity came during the phase of Long march (1943-35) when Acupuncture was applied and resulted in maintaining the health of the Army in spite of the harsh weather conditions. This triggered the Government of the time to realize the importance of the acupuncture and in the year 1950, the then Chinese premier Mao officially ordered to merge the Western medicine with the Chinese medicine. Due to this the practice of the Traditional Chinese medicine Acupuncture was established in many hospitals. From the year 1950 onwards, Acupuncture became an essential part of the Modern Chinese medicine practice, where the researchers are investigating the possibility of combining the benefits of the western medicine and Acupuncture. The research is also going on in the area of showcasing the advantage of Acupuncture where the western medicine is not yet able to provide any treatment, so far. For example, Acupuncture analgesia was used for minilaparotomy on female patients who were seeking voluntary sterilization and this could be used to determine that it can be used as a substitute for standard analgesic sedation. There were 62 percent of the females that used acupuncture electro stimulation and thereafter they did not required any drug medication and the sterilization was successfully performed by only using the local unaesthetic and acupuncture. After the one hour operation the patients gets discharged from the hospital. In rural areas of a developing country this method, acupuncture analgesia with less trained anesthetists can be proved a safe, simple and economical method. Hence, as can be seen from the discussion so far, the Chinese traditional medicine works on the central philosophy of having the healing mechanism within the body of the human being. The acupuncture and herbal medicine practice are designed to support and remove the obstructions in the body to enable it to heal on itself. On the other hand the western medicine works on the concept of symptoms and then removing the symptoms from the body rather then looking towards a holistic treatment. The simple example where this distinction is clearly seen could be the treatment of cancerous tissues in the body where the western medicine attempts to remove the infected tissue or organ. As the complete removal is not possible, some fragments of the cancerous tissues remain in the body resulting in the relapse of the disease. On the other hand, the Acupuncture's basis philosophy is to heal the cancerous part of the body by preparing enhancing its own fighting mechanism. These treatments are holistic in nature as they ensure that the disease does not relapse. (Roemer, Ansgar T., 2005) The sterilization does not seem to have any focus in the Acupuncture old text derived from the history. Sterilization in the Acupuncture became a focus after the discovery of the bacteria and microbes. The technique of sterilization involves the destruction of all bacteria and microbes from the needle part of the injection. This is done to ensure that there is no infection due to the use of non-sterilized needles which can be quite dangerous. The application of modern medicinal best practices like sterilization in the field of Acupuncture would enhance the potential and safety of it (Dewan, David M., 1997). Research Purpose and method The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the non-sterilized needles in the Acupuncture medicinal practice. The case studies would be picked from various research papers as indicated in the references and then a discussion on it would be done. Subsequent to the discussion, the conclusion would be drawn and few recommendations would be provided. The World health organization issued guidelines for clinical research best practice in acupuncture in the year 1995. These guidelines were issued after the recommendations from the scientific group, convened by World Health Organization (WHO) in 1989, which was given the responsibility to approve the standard nomenclature on Acupuncture. There are other organizations that have come up with the various methods of sterilizing the needles used for acupuncture and the efficacy of those methods. The discussion on the infection due to non-sterilized needles would be taken up after the case studies and then the efficacy of the sterilization methods would be taken up (Guidelines on Basic Training and Safety in acupuncture, 999). This study would also focus on the merging of the best practices of western medicine with Acupuncture and how the advantages from this merger can be best used. Data collection Methodology The data for the study is collected from the secondary sources. The cases which are studied are picked up from the various books, journals and web pages as indicated in the references and citations. Research conducted and the discussion The April 2002 issue of Journal of Clinical Microbiology states that a previously unidentified bacterial infection can occur in the human body as a result of non-sterilized needles used in the Acupuncture treatment. The researchers felt that as the Acupuncture was gaining popularity as an alternative medicine, there is an additional emphasis required on ensuring that the sterilized needles are used to conduct the Acupuncture treatment. Several patient-to-patient infections occur in case of diseases like HIV, hepatitis C & B by using/sharing the needles. The same infections can be transferred if the infected needles are used in the Acupuncture treatment. In this particular study, researchers found an interesting observation. They observed a bacterium, known as Mycobacterium, which is usually found on the layers of skin as one of the primary cause of infection. Another striking finding was that the mycobacterium can not be killed by regular sterilization process rather it is found that it is resistant to the normal disinfectants. The researchers proposed that the existing guidelines for executing the sterilization process would need revision and the efficacy of each process needs to be worked out. Essentially, this research stressed the need for sterilizing the Acupuncture needles and that too with a new method which is different from the traditional methods. Another research which was done by department of Microbiology, national college of Chiropractic, Lombard, lays down the various methods to sterilize needles and specifically focuses on the methods which can be used for the Acupuncture needles. The researchers conducted the experiments to limit the transmission of Hepatitis virus through the needles used for the Acupuncture. They observed that the needles were inadequately sterilized and hence resulted in the transmission of virus to the patient who was treated by this alternative form of medicine. The different methods to sterilize the acupuncture needles were evaluated on their efficacy and finally the best sterilization method was recommended. The method of sterilization by dry heat, pressurized steam, boiling water, 70% alcohol, sodium hypochlorite were used to sterilize the needles. Another non-traditional method of sterilizing by glass bead dry heat sterilizer was used to compare against the traditional method of sterilization. The Glass bead method was originally developed to sterilize the dental instruments. The method used was to infect the pre-sterilized acupuncture needles with the various infecting bacteria and then apply the sterilization process and check the effectiveness of the process. It was found that the 70% alcohol, which is considered to be the traditionally viable sterilization solution is totally in-effective in sterilizing the acupuncture needles. The glass bead method was found to be the most optimum method to sterilize the acupuncture needles in terms of convenience and time. The needles were removed of the infection causing bacteria within 10 sec of exposure. Another advantage of using the glass bead method is that it does not cause any physical damage to the needles as it happens in the case of dry heat and pressurized boiling (Sisco V, Winters, 1988) Finally, there have been number of cases reported which were attributed to the infected needles used in the acupuncture treatment. Few of them were reported by an Oriental Doctor in South Korean capital, Seoul, in Dec 2001. The Doctor observed continuous skin lesions on the body of the patients where the acupuncture treatment was conducted. These were the sites where the acupuncture needles were inserted and the treatment was performed earlier. The authors (Division of the infectious disease, Korea University College of Medicine) reported the above incident in their paper which dealt with the outbreak of the mycobacterium abscesses in the post-acupuncture cutaneous infection. This bacterium is found on the skin of the patient to be treated and if the proper hygiene is not applied, it can result in the infections which become chronic, if not treated in time (Song, Joon Young et. al, 2006) There have been instances where the acupuncture was alleged to be the primary reason of causing paraplegic situation in the patient after the spinal treatment done to him. In Montreal, Canada, health officials found that at least 1100 patients were at the risk of getting HIV and hepatitis through the needles used for conducting acupuncture as the practitioner was not sterilizing the needles used for the treatment. The health officials had to contact the patients treated at the clinic and get their exposure tested for the HIV and hepatitis. In London, England, 30 patients were found to be infected with the potentially fatal hepatitis B virus. The reason was found as the use of non-sterilized needles used for treating the patients through the acupuncture. There have been few cases where the patient could not sustain the Acupuncture treatment and collapsed within few hours of the treatment conducted on them (What alternative health practitioners might not tell you,2009). Comments on the Research In the modern world, usually, acupuncture treatment is conducted by qualified Acupuncturists after they qualify the relevant exams in their countries. Normally, the needles which are used in the treatment are pre-sterilized and disposable. The qualified Acupuncturists are aware of concern over infection as well as that these infections may be due to various unknown causes which can be harmful for the patient. Normally, the acupuncture treatment should not cause any side effects and rarely does it cause serious side effects. The symptoms may be feeling of brief, dull ache etc. These side effects are not always occurred by needles but also due to ill responsibilities of practitioners for example the insertion of improper needles. This may cause swelling and the other symptoms could be change in appetite, sleep, bowel or urination patterns. It may also affect emotional states and energy area of the patient's body (American Society for Microbiology, 2002). The side effects due to acupuncture treatments are attributed mostly to the Acupuncturists. The side effects may also relate with the type of treatment given to the patient. In acupuncture there are certain places where needles are inserted like lung area located under the rib cage so it should be done by a licensed acupuncture physician. It is safe when done by specialize and properly trained practitioners but can cause adverse effect when it is used carelessly as reported from Los Angles Cines Learning Center, a center specializing in natural Chinese medicine. Acupuncture should be free from harmful effects during the course of correct procedure how ever the needle shock is one of the rare side effects. The patient could feel loss of consciousness, vertigo and concussions. There is another side effect called pneumothorax, which may damage the patient body. In this side effects the puncture of lung can happen and this could be fatal. This also causes the redness of surrounding area from where the needles are taken out after insertion. This is due to release of hormones into the blood circulation. As can be seen from the above discussion and the previous section on the research conducted, it is really important to get the acupuncture treatment from the authorized acupuncturists. The patient must verify the credentials of the acupuncturist before getting the treatment. On the other hand, the Government and WHO must ensure that the proper acupuncture practices are being followed by all the clinics and any anomaly in following the accepted procedures must be dealt firmly (Dewan, David M., 1997). Conclusions There is no dearth of examples quoting the positive effects of the acupuncture but the other face of the coin show the real side effects and harmful aspects of these practices. We all now become familiar with the negative effects, which overlap the positive side greatly. This may include, from the people experience, regular sensation of warmth, tingling in the treated area, tenderness, swelling, and redness of infected area. Although this practice is popular from its name but the carelessness may causes various ill effects and the regular use of it may be dangerous for mankind. So there should be proper care and responsibilities taken from experts. The proper utility of gadgets under the supervision of experts may enhance the effect of this acupuncture and enable to minimize the side effects. References ____ American Society for Microbiology, Emerging Infection Associated with Acupuncture (2002), Available at: , Accessed on: 30 Jun 2009 ____ Dewan, David M. and Hood, David D., Practical obstetric anesthesia (1997), Saunders. ____ Ebm-First.com, What alternative health practitioners might not tell you (2009), Available at: , Accessed on: 30 Jun 2009 ____ Gabriel Stux, Brian Berman, Bruce Pomeranz, P. Kofen, Basics of Acupuncture (2003), Springer. ____ Roemer, Ansgar T., Thomas Kempfle, Ingrid Reuther, Medical acupuncture in pregnancy: a textbook (2005), Thieme. ____ Sisco V, Winters LL, Zange LL, Brennan PC, Efficacy of various methods of sterilization of acupuncture needles (1988), Available at: , Accessed on: 30 Jun 2009 ____Song, Joon Young, Sohn, Jang Wook, Jeong, Hye Won , Hee Jin Cheong,Woo Joo Kim and Min Ja Kim, An outbreak of post-acupuncture cutaneous infection due to Mycobacterium abscessus (2006), Available at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/6/6, Accessed on: 30 Jun 2009 ____WHO MD, Guidelines on Basic Training and Safety in acupuncture (1999), Available at: , Accessed on: 30 Jun 2009 Read More