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ACUPUNCTURE

A Visit to China

In September 1971 Dr. Paul Dudley White of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. E. Grey Dimond of the University of Missouri Medical School, along with their wives, were invited to the Peoples' Republic of China by the China Medical Association. When the western physicians expressed an interest in acupuncture, they were invited to witness several surgical procedures using this traditional form of Chinese medicine. Acupuncture involves the placement of needles at strategic points on the body as an anesthetic or to treat acute or chronic conditions. While acupuncture had been practiced for years among Chinese Americans, it was not until President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972 that this different means of treatment was publicized to other Americans.

How Does It Work?

Dr. John W. C. Fox, a Brooklyn anesthesiologist, hypothesized that it worked on the "gate control" technique. According to his idea, sensations passing along peripheral neural fibers must pass through a "gate" in the spinal cord before they are transmitted to the brain. Pain is transmitted along relatively thin fibers and tends to keep the gate open. Acupuncture needles placed in these fibers override the pain sensation by producing a vibratory stimulus that closes the gate and blocks the transmission of pain to the brain. The traditional Chinese explanation is that vital forces pass through meridians or pathways throughout the body. The needles, when manipulated in precise ways, cause changes to take place within the meridians, and if this procedure is done correctly, the process restores the desired balance of heat and cold, or yin and yang, and the pain is anesthetized. "The classical balance between yin and yang is very poetic," said Dr. Fox, "but acupuncture can be explained in terms the Western scientists will accept."

Curiosity and Crackdown

After U.S. scientists brought back glowing reports of acupuncture's use in mainland China, acupuncture practices in the nation's Chinatowns were swamped with non-Chinese Americans wanting treatment. It did not take long for concern to be expressed about unlicensed practitioners. In the United States Chinese acupuncturists practiced without interference for years, although they were unlicensed by state medical boards. Many held medical degrees from Chinese institutions, but bad publicity from unscrupulous practitioners threatened their livelihoods. Various states set up systems for state licensing to regulate acupuncture. The Internal Revenue Service ruled that it was a deductible medical expense for income tax purposes—a sign the practice had gained mainstream recognition.

A Medical Fad

By the end of the decade at least one-quarter of the world's population used acupuncture for analgesia and treatment. It was incorporated to some degree in medical practice and training in many other countries, and in the People's Republic of China it was a routine part of the national health-care system. Its advocates maintained it could be used as an anesthetic in such procedures as open-heart surgery; and it effectively treated conditions such as the common cold, infectious hepatitis, acute appendicitis, toothache, schizophrenia, and migraines. Acupuncture therapists claimed it could even help someone quit smoking, but by 1979 the procedure was all but ignored in the United States.

Acupuncture and American Medical Values

Most Americans dismissed acupuncture because it fit poorly into the value system of American medicine. Acupuncture is an ancient and foreign tradition, a procedure at odds with the American concept of modern, scientifically based medicine. The procedure lacks the technological mystique of the white-coated scientist using complicated instruments to effect cures. There was, moreover, no major advocate of the procedure in the United States demanding clinical trials and laboratory experiments for the practice; and the commercial potential of acupuncture seemed unattractive to the medical industry. However, acupuncture has continued to exist quietly on the medical fringe, used by a small number of adherents as an alternative to Western medicine.