Reference; https://mbp-japan.com/tokyo/seino-1987/column/5107924/
Modified and translated by CFJA
This is the twelfth blog on acumoxa therapy. Since the content on acumoxa therapy is heavy due to its long history and it played a central role in the medical field in Japan and China, we will be breaking it down into pieces and writing several blogs.
What is Eastern Medicine? 01 was about acupuncture therapy from ancient times to the Asuka period (592 – 710).
What is Eastern Medicine? 02 was about acupuncture therapy until the beginning of the Edo period (1603 – 1868).
What is Eastern Medicine? 03 was about moxibustion therapy until the beginning of the Edo period.
What is Eastern Medicine? 04 was about acumoxa therapy after the Edo period.
What is Eastern Medicine? 05 was about China from ancient times to the 1960s.
What is Eastern Medicine? 06 was about how TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) was established in China in 1960.
What is Eastern Medicine? 07 was about “What is TCM?”
What is Eastern Medicine? 08 was about how Japanese acumoxa techniques have been transmitted and adapted in China.
What is Eastern Medicine? 09 was about acupuncture techniques practiced in China.
What is Eastern Medicine? 10 was about Japanese acupuncture techniques that have been brought and adapted in China.
What is Eastern Medicine? 11 was about Cheng Dan’an – the father of TCM – acupuncture techniques.
This time, “What is Eastern Medicine? 12” will be about moxibustion therapy practiced in Japan and China.
The content of What is Eastern Medicine? 9 to 11 was very specialized. This goes for every blog but for this one as well, we have put great effort into writing difficult content as simple as possible.
We have been writing this blog with the aim of “the enlightenment of Eastern medicine and the spread of Eastern medical therapies.” Acumoxa therapy is a form of medical treatment that can serve as an alternative to pharmacotherapy and potentially avoid surgery. However, acumoxa therapy is still receiving low evaluations and the majority of medical practitioners and patients believe combining acumoxa therapy with pharmacotherapy might lead to better outcomes.
This is because the process of differentiating whether the condition is better improved with only acumoxa therapy, or it should be combined with other forms of treatment, has not been done. Although Dr. Seino has not treated every disease in the world, based on his 40 years of clinical experience, he has numerous cases where only using acumoxa therapy has shown much better results with faster recovery compared to using and combining pharmacotherapy with acumoxa therapy. We hope to let as many people as possible know the true ability of acumoxa therapy.
On the other hand, we cannot neglect the truth that many patients are still unable to feel the actual therapeutic effects of acumoxa therapy as its effectiveness depends on the skill level of the practitioner. Also, to those who believe that China is the most advanced and Japan’s treatment skills are still at the lower level, we are writing the blog to convey that this is not the case.
(The following content is the same as the last blog. If this is your first time reading our blog, please start here.)
In China, herbal and acumoxa therapy has been practiced as a national medicine from the Han dynasty, through the Sui, Tang, Yuan, and Song dynasties, to the Qing dynasty. In 1822, the court physician committed medical malpractice on the son of the Daoguang emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The emperor raged with anger and edicted ‘Although acumoxa therapy holds a prolonged history, inserting a needle on one’s body or burning with moxa are unfavourable to practice on the emperor. Therefore, the department of acumoxa in the imperial medical hospital within the Qing dynasty shall be closed forever’ (鍼灸の一法、由來已に久し、然れども鍼を以って刺し火もて灸するは、究む所奉君の宜しき所にあらず、太医院鍼灸の一科は、永遠に停止と著す). Prohibition of acumoxa therapy on the emperor, consequently, led to prohibition amongst the civilians as well. Since then, acumoxa therapy continued to decline; Chinese medicine in general, including herbal therapy, declined. In China, the research on acumoxa stopped, and it became difficult to transmit as a medicine to the next generations and faced corruption in the early period of the Republic of China (ROC). The government of the ROC, established in 1911, did not acknowledge acumoxa and herbal therapy as national medicine, even after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established in 1949.
The Chinese, with the hopes of reviving acumoxa therapy in their country, came to Japan to study Japanese medicine. The key person was Cheng Dan’an 承淡安. He studied in Japan for eight months, from 1934 to 1935, to investigate the advanced education of Japanese acumoxa therapy. He studied at Tokyo High School of Acupuncture and Moxibustion 東京高等鍼灸学校 (Kuretake academy 呉竹学園 today), founded in 1929, for 6 months and received a certificate of completion. After returning to China, he attempts to integrate the educational content from the acumoxa school in Japan.
In 1956, Jiangsu College of Chinese Medicine 江蘇省中医進修学校 (Currently, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine 南京中医薬大学) was built in Nanjing, which indicated the official revival of acumoxa therapy as the national medicine in China. The first president was Cheng Dan’an and his educational policies became the basis for the education of Chinese medicine in China.
(The new content is from here.)
When Cheng Dan’an was studying in Japan, he was strongly influenced by the Japanese moxibustion therapy. He even delayed his return to his hometown for about half a month to receive and experience moxibustion therapy in many different clinics. After returning to China, in his diary, he wrote his impressions of the fact that ‘there was a clinic where the specialist for moxibustion therapy resides’. Cheng Dan’an proposed gaikyu therapy艾灸療法 (Jp. gaikyu ryoho) to spread moxibustion therapy and to improve the therapeutic effect. This has also been the mainstream academic ideology for Chengjiang Acupuncture and Moxibustion Style 澄江鍼灸学派※1.
※1 Chengjiang Acupuncture and Moxibustion Style 澄江鍼灸学派… School of thought that emerged in 1989, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Cheng Dan’an’s birth. Chengjiang 澄江 (Jp. Choko) is another name for the region Jiangyin 江陰 (Jp. Koin) – hometown of Cheng Dan’an. Please visit “What is Eastern Medicine? 08” for more details. Based on Japanese moxibustion therapy, Cheng Dan’an attempted to construct gaikyu therapy 艾灸療法 – a method that involves kneading moxa into small pieces with a hand and lighting a fire with incense. Back then, China did not practice this technique. Cheng Dan’an’s method of gaikyu therapy is something that Japanese moxibustionist can easily recognize just by observing the technique. However, surprisingly, the moxibustion therapy that has been practiced in Japan does not have the proper nouns. Cheng Dan’an has analyzed the Japanese moxibustion therapy, given proper nouns and established the treatment method. Despite his study in Japan was short, it is surprising to see how much he was able to analyze the Japanese moxibustion therapy. We will be introducing the methods later in the blog, but unfortunately, most are not practiced in China currently; perhaps, they are using the method called stick moxibustion 棒灸 (Jp. bokyu) but nothing more than that. Thus, it would be no exaggeration to say that TCM’s moxibustion treatment effect is not even 10% of TJM ( Traditional Japanese Medicine).
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