A short history of acupuncture

Thousands of years ago, probably during the Stone Age (4000 BC), people in the Far East used sharp objects or crude needles to drain abscesses and relieve pain.

Over many hundreds of years, people observed what happened when different points on the body were stimulated, and a rational system of using specific points to alleviate specific problems began to develop.

These healing mechanisms became entwined with the predominant philosophical and religious beliefs in China, specifically Taoism (around 455 BC), though the earliest text on the philosophical theories and uses of acupuncture is “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine” which dates back to 2000 BC.

So the principles on which traditional Chinese medicine is based are quite different to those of western medicine. They have developed from thousands of years of observational evidence, and draw on the philosophical theories of ancient China to form a sophisticated and effective system of medicine.