Acupuncture -
Oriental Medicine History
Page 2 of 2
In China, the eventual coming into power of the Communists, led by Mao Ze-Dong, in the 1940's led to the "Cultural Revolution" and the near elimination of Oriental Medicine. During this time the families that had been practicing medicine and scholarly interests were sent to work in the fields in the hope of balancing the scales between the poor and the wealthy, the educated and laborer. Mao quickly learned that the development of Western (Allopathic) style medicine was out of his vast country's reach at that time. He needed to bring back the traditions and art of the classical medicine of the people.
To do this Mao created a "New" form of medicine, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Prior to Mao and his creation the families controlled their style and their doctrine. Mao found all these different styles and method cumbersome and very difficult to teach to the masses. He unified the masters of many of the families (primarily from the herbal families) and mandated what and how Chinese Medicine would be defined, taught, and practiced. During this time Masters like Master Tung left the communist controlled China for many other countries in Asia. This is where we see the development of other styles of treatment. Each country would take the classic texts and the family styles to create systems that allowed greater variation in doctrine and practice. Master Tung settled in Taiwan where he opened his final clinic based on his family's traditions and eventually passed them on to his students. Master Tung's Acupuncture is characterized by his unique methods of holigraphic imaging and extremity needling.
Following the Cultural Revolution Mao changed his tune in regard to Chinese Medicine. He strengthened the country's connection to its history while still bringing ideas from the west into the country's health care system.
Chinese Medicine essentially came to the States following President Richard Nixon's visit in the early 1970's. While in China one of his staff required an emergency appendectomy where he received Acupuncture as the form of anesthesia.
History of Oriental Medicine: return to page one