The untold story of acupuncture

The Emperor’s New Clothes—An Epistemological Critique of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Acupuncture

“…The four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) and the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and air) are vitalist concepts used to help us make sense of overwhelmingly complex entities, such as health, disease and death. The body is a microcosm, obeying to the same natural laws of the universe [2,8,15]. Pneuma and Qi represent the same animist vital force, holding everything together in harmony.…”

“…Acupuncture, however, was not always about fine stainless-steel needles and in the words of the historian Epler Jr. “bears little resemblance to its ancestral version” [18] (p. 337). Again, analogical reasoning proves useful: A closer look into the nine ancient acupuncture needles (Figure 1a), leads us to conclude that most of them would be betted described as lancets, similar to those used by European barber-surgeons (Figure 1b), rather than needles: With flat surfaces, sharp edges and geometrical points, they would have been employed for lancing, firing and bloodletting, instead of needling [15,18,19]. Other needles are similar to surgical probes and scoops used by Roman physicians for cauterizing and probing wounds and fistulae (Figure 1c).…”

“…Others have pointed to the fact that the word zhen , often translated as needle, can refer to any sharp object used for cauterization, lancing, bleeding and surgery [15,19,20]. The term jing luo [經絡], which has become known in the West as meridian—a word coined by the French diplomat George Soulié de Morant (1878–1955)—used to designate a system of channels or vessels containing both blood and Qi (or Pneuma ) [18,19].…”

“…In contrast, the Catholic Church has never prohibited surgery or therapeutic bloodletting [8] (p. 144) and has probably never officially banned human anatomic dissections [22]. As a consequence, medical surgery in Imperial China (including bloodletting and cauterisation) was considered of lesser value than herbal medicine [9,15], and maybe even proscribed. In line with this argument, it is noteworthy that no such thing as Traditional Chinese Surgery has withstood the test of time.…”

“…However, the principles of TCM, just like humoralism, should have no place in modern veterinary medicine. Since humoral medicine is part of a distant past, a ‘collective amnesia’ prevents us from seeing the resemblances between Qi and Pneuma and between acupuncture and bloodletting [15]. Furthermore, the allure of exotic ‘medical orientalism’, together with an opportunity to differentiate oneself from others, have however driven many veterinary colleagues towards embracing TCVM.…”