Journal article
Innovations in acumoxa: accupunture analgesia, scalp and ear acupuncture in the People's Republic of China
- Abstract:
- This paper examines three 'innovations in acumoxa' (zhenjiu) that were promulgated by the Chinese government during the Maoist periods of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76): acupuncture analgesia (zhenjiu mazui), scalp acupuncture (touzhen) and ear acupuncture (erzhen). They all bear features of Chinese and Western medical practice, a characteristic which has been exploited in Chinese politics of health. On the one hand, the innovations have been promoted for the nationalistic reason in virtue of their being inherently Chinese. On the other hand, by equating Western medical practice with science, they signify modernity and progressiveness. In the late eighties, all still enjoyed official backing. Although they were no longer exclusively practised in government hospitals, they still stood for what they had originally been promulgated. Acupuncture analgesia, while no more practised in the clinic, is still the prototype of a Chinese scientific therapy, now subject to biomedical research in laboratories. Scalp acupuncture, which never became widely known as a modern Chinese-Western innovation, is still being practised exclusively by skilled doctors. Ear acupuncture is now practised also outside government institutions, for the same reason of being easily applied, easily learnt and extremely economical as it had originally been promulgated. Paradoxically, ear acupuncture, the most popular of the three, was 'discovered' outside China, by a French doctor, and is founded on the principles of reflexology, a therapy that the biomedical establishment does not consider scientific.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1016/0277-9536(95)00106-9
Authors
- Publisher:
- Pergamon Press
- Journal:
- Social Science & Medicine More from this journal
- Volume:
- 42
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 421-430
- Publication date:
- 1996-02-01
- DOI:
- ISSN:
-
0277-9536
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Subjects:
- UUID:
-
uuid:fb7665bb-55ae-48ad-a325-f468feeea0b7
- Local pid:
-
ora:2718
- Deposit date:
-
2009-03-24
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Elsevier Science Ltd
- Copyright date:
- 1996
- Notes:
- The full-text of this article is not available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article by clicking on 'Resolve this DOI' or via the publisher copy link on this record page. Dr Hsu is now based at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.
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