Unique Therapies in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Unique Therapies in Traditional Chinese Medicine

ACUPUNCTURE AND MOXIBUSTION THERAPY

• Acupuncture and moxibustion therapy has a history of thousands of years. The acupuncture and moxibustion therapy involves the use of jabbing with needles and the placement of burning crushed dry moxa. In acupuncture therapy, specially made needles are used to jab into certain acupuncture points of the body of a patient, curing diseases by twirling or lifting the needles.
• As for moxibustion, dry moxa is crushed and then lit up to fume and scorch certain acupuncture points on the skin, curing diseases by the stimulation of heat.
• The acupuncture and moxibustion originated sometime around the New Stone Age and began to be widely used during the Spring and Autumn Period
• The rationale for acupuncture and moxibustion therapy is: Main and collateral channels as a network of passages for the circulation of energy and blood are all over the human body and its function are to connect the external and internal, the upper and lower part of human body. 
• To jab or scorch certain acupuncture points on the surface of the human body can stimulate the human body through the meridians, then adjust the internal function inside the human body, improve its ability to prevent diseases or cure diseases
• The acupuncture and moxibustion therapy spread to Japan and Korea as early as in the Han and Tang Dynasties and to Arabia and Europe in sequence in the Song and Yuan Dynasties and is still thought of highly up to now

A bronze human with marked acupuncture points

Acupuncture and moxibustion

MASSAGE

• In massage therapy, an aspects of traditional Chinese medicine, a massager uses his hands and other limb parts to push, press, nip and knead the acupuncture points or the surface of the human body for the purpose of disease prevention, healing, health improvement and cosmetology. It belongs to the external therapy of traditional Chinese medicine.
• Chinese medical massage has a long history. It reached its climax and was spread to Korea, Japan and India during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. 
• As a kind of natural therapy, Chinese medical massage has the strong points of less trauma and fewer side effects. As people are attaching much importance to natural therapy with no medicine, trauma or side effects, the Chinese massage therapy techniques are recognized and accepted in more and more countries.

SCRAPING TREATMENT

• Scraping treatment was long popular among people in ancient China. People used copper coins and twine dipped in water or sesame oil to scrape the chest or backs of a patient, alleviating internal inflammation by making local hyperemia on the skin.
• Today, scraping treatment has developed from the previous superficial, simple empirical treatment into one of natural therapies guided by a systematic Chinese medical theory. The tools used in scraping treatment are usually special plates made of buffalo horns or jade and the therapy is applicable to eliminating fatigue, losing weight, cosmetology and keeping fit.

CUPPING THERAPY

• In cupping therapy, cups made of bamboo, pottery or glass are heated and attached to the skin by means of a heat vacuum, causing hyperemia and thus cure the diseases.
• In ancient times, cupping therapy was used for the surgical treatment of inflammation with pyogenesis and was later extended to tuberculosis, rheumatism, rheum, insomnia and others.
• This therapy is simple and effective, hence being passed down from generation to generation, and is still popular today, even rousing interest among some foreigners