Cultural factors in the theories of meridians and organs / 中国针灸

ABSTRACT

It takes quite a long process in the formation of the relevant theories of meridians and organs and many cultural factors are involved in the development of these theories at different eras, e.g. "the five evolution and six climatic factors", "twelve as the representing number of universe", "twenty-eight stars", "three and three " and "ancient bureaucratic system". Some of the theories are not coincident with the clinical practice at present. By the influence of the doctrine as "the five evolution and six climatic factors", only eleven meridians were recorded in the early ancient literature. Due to the saying "twelve as the representing number of universe", twelve meridians were developed and the other related meridians classified into the categories as the collaterals and the extraordinary meridians. Because of the theory of three and three , it is understandable why the indications of the clinical practices are not correlated with the relevant theories of meridians and organs. For example, the indications of three meridians of hand are not related to the large intestine, the small intestine and , and the corresponding acupoints in the treatment for the related disorders are located in the lower extremities. The ancient bureaucratic system had affected the understanding of the organs functions. For example, the heart is regarded as the monarch, protected by the pericardium. The hand- meridian-related cardiac disorders match with the pericardium. Hence, the cardiac disorders are treated by the acupoints of the hand- meridian rather than the hand- meridian. In this paper, the cultural factors in the theories of meridians and organs are deeply analyzed and those factors that are not coincident with the present clinical practice are separated. The analytic results are significant to the future research on meridians and organs.