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Professor of Oriental Medicine Although my presentation today, concerns Pain Management and Scientific Acupuncture, I would like to give you a brief outline on the history of Acupuncture in Japan. I. A Brief History of Acupuncture in Japan described. The Edo period (1603-1867) was the zenith for acupuncture in Japan and most of the present acupuncture technique was developed during this period. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Japanese government established a medical law for Western medicine which effectively omitted Ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine, referred to as Kampo in Japanese and which included acupuncture, from formal medical school education. Acupuncture, moxibustion, oriental massage, and other techniques continued to be practiced with the support of many patients, and were officially recognized under Japanese law in 1947. It is interesting, however, that some of the medical doctors educated in Western medicine maintained a deep interest in Kampo. Among them was Yoshio Nakatani who studied acupuncture electrophysiologically and discovered that most of the meridian points of the traditional acupuncture theory corresponded to points which have lower electrical resistance than the normal body surface. These meridian points are called "tsubo" in Japanese. Nakatani named these points "Ryodoten" which means electroconductive points, and the systematic functional group of Ryodoten which form the shape of a band, he called "Ryodoraku". It is the consensus of many medical researchers today that the Ryodoraku corresponds to the meridian pathway of Traditional acupuncture theory. By using this Ryodoraku therapy for pain management, we have successfully treated many cases.

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