Part I: The Forgotten

PathA North American

Style is Born

channels and collaterals in most PRC texts

that came much later). This puzzled me,
because Felix Manns early text in English on
the meridians of acupuncture from around
the same time as Van Nghis earliest writings
was widely available, and listed 59 meridians
(he did not designate the 12 luo anastomosislike pathways from each of the 12 regular
meridians luo points to its paired meridians
source point as actual meridians, even
though all texts portrayed this little shunt as
a dotted line without further mention). The
earliest problem for me with this picture, was
glaring. Where had all the meridians gone?
What happened to the jingluo filter that
reduced 71, or 59 meridians to 14? And what
were the implications of this for acupuncture
practice in North America?

Reflection One: The History of a

Compromise The TCM
Organization of Acupuncture
Practice

THE PROBLEM
As I began meeting founders and educators
from the other schools of acupuncture
starting in 1982, during their formation of
the National Council of Acupuncture
Schools & Colleges (now CCAOM), I was
struck by the absence of what I came to call
the jingluo filter and jingluo pattern
identification as a way to develop an
acupuncture treatment plan. Most of the
other schools focused on teaching the 14
meridians (where the two extraordinary
vessels, du and ren mai were taught not as
part of the 8 extraordinary vessel network
with its own treatment applications and
strategies, but as landmarks that demarcated
the ventral and dorsal midline on the basis of
which location of points on the torso could
be taught), and the use of distal antique or
command points combined with front-mu
and back-shu points. As I began teaching in
several of these other schools, and teachers
from these schools began teaching in mine, I
saw my role in these early days as a translator
of what I perhaps erroneously referred to as
French meridian acupuncture in the
tradition of Nguyen Van Nghi, MD. There,
one found a comprehensive presentation of
the jingluo filter, with detailed exploration of
the 12 regular meridians, and their
associated secondary vessels (12 divergent,
12 transverse luo, 15 longitudinal luo, 12
tendinomuscular) and the 8 extraordinary
vessels, comprising 71 jingluo (translated as

Correcting for an Error

As Maciocia states in The Channels of
Acupuncture, The organs and their relevant
channels form an invisible energetic unit:
problems of the Internal Organs can effect
the relevant channels, and, conversely,
problems that start by affecting channels can
penetrate the Interior and be transmitted to
the organs (p. 97). The fact that he starts
this clarification by capitalizing Internal
Organs displaces the total connection
between a meridian and its internal branch,
which connects to its paired meridian of the
opposite polarity (Lung to Large Intestine
etcetera). The role of the internal branches,
rooted in the Sea of Blood and Qi, of
enabling inside (the function of organs,
glands, deep tissue, Blood and Qi) and
outside to communicate is already distorted
in Maciocias decidedly modern, TCM
interpretation.
Dr. Yitian Ni, in her Navigating the Channels,
reminds us of the classical functions of the
channels and collaterals, namely to: Integrate
the whole body providing a network
connecting Zang and Fu, the interior to the

exterior, which links each part of the body

to every other part, creating an organic
whole; Circulate the Qi and Blood, so that
the organs and tissues can be nourished and
lubricated [], their functions can be
regulated, and [] a relative equilibrium of
normal life activities can be maintained;
Demonstrate the location of disorders, such that
the pathogenic effect from one organ or part
of the body can pass to another area, and
meanwhile be reflected on the body surface
through the channel system: hence in an
attack on the lung regular meridian and
organ (hand taiyin), the pathogenic factors
can be transmitted to the paired large
intestine, resulting in a tenderness, or other
abnormality on the body surface along the
Lung and Large Intestine Channels (ibid, p.
1); Transmit the needling sensation, which can
move along the channel system to the
affected area: When properly applied, this
function regulates and activates the flow of
Qi, balances Yin and Yang, and restores the
normal function of the organs and channels
(ibid).

LingShu, can be confusing as they may

include some from the relevant organ and
sometimes even from other organs. He cites
the case of the main Lung channel, which
might have signs and symptoms from: the
Lung channel (pain in the upper arm, and
fullness and distention in the chest); the
Lung organ (cough); and the Large Intestine
channel (pain in the supraclavicular fossa)
which he notes is related to the Lung
channel (ibid).
What Dr. Ni took as a normal part of the
internal /external and YinYang regulatory
function of the main channels, connecting
the external Lung channel to its internal
Lung organ, and connecting the Lung organ
to its paired yang Large Intestine bowel,
which itself is connected to its Large
Intestine channel, Maciocia decides to
present as confusing. His choice of terms is
precise, and meant to create this confusion:
sometimes even from other organs and is
related make it sound curious that Lung and
Large Intestine organ and channel signs and
symptoms would appear together in the
classic description of the main channels.

Maciocia goes on to a study of the symptoms

and signs of the twelve main channels (jing
mai) (ibid, pp. 98-106), reminding us that
channel problems can arise from: an exterior
invasion of wind, cold or dampness leading
to bi syndromes; overuse or repetitive strain;
or sports and other injuries leading to Qi
stagnation, which of course are the three
causes of cutaneous region and muscle
channel disorders (the yang or wei level of
channel invasion). He then adds, almost as
an afterthought that, finally channel
problems can of course spring from InternalOrgan disharmonies (ibid, p. 98).

Once having created this confusion, which

the reader certainly wants cleared up,
Maciocia gives the TCM solution developed
in the early 1960s:
Thus channel patterns include some
symptoms and signs from the organs
themselves. These can safely be ignored, as
for organ problems it is much better to use
the Internal Organ (ZangFu) Pattern
Identification (ibid). He then proceeds, for
each main channel, to give the pure channel
symptoms and the organ symptoms in a
manner that is incorrect and not in keeping
with the LingShu Chapter 10, as it presents
the classical signs and symptoms.

He then moves on to the crux of the problem

as I see it, with an error that is based on a
ZangFu bias which is characteristic of
modern TCM acupuncture. He states the
obvious, that Channel Pattern Identification
describes the pathological changes occurring
in channels. He then suggests that these
signs and symptoms, from Chapter 10 of the

This is either because Maciocia does not care

to be clear, wishes to confound the
confusion, or, which is entirely possible, is
seriously confused himself.

In order to facilitate their completion of

training in the Quebec Institutes
acupuncture program, with the translation
help of the Institutes director of education,
Mario Wexu (Oscars son, and the author of
a book on ear acupuncture that the Lincoln
Detox founders had discovered which lead
them to the Quebec Institute), Mario Wexu
was sent to New York City to help these
acupuncture pioneers establish their training
program as a branch of the Quebec Institute
while completing their studies in English
with Oscar Wexus son. Unfortunately, none
of the French texts used by the Montreal
school were available in English translation,
and the only text in English was the Outline
of Chinese Acupuncture from the Peoples
Republic of China.

Whatever the case, Maciocias discussion of

main channel Pattern Identification is
clinically flawed, and underscores the fact
then TCM acupuncture teachings over the
past 47 years or so have replaced the
differentiation of internal organ symptoms of
main Jingluo patterns with ZangFu pattern
differentiations.
This process extended far beyond the PRC,
as it affected the teaching of Main Channel
Pattern Identification in the entire Englishspeaking world. In North America, as AOM
colleges were obliged to keep up with new
TCM texts from PRC, and as the NCCAOM
national board examinations were developed
based on TCM texts in large part, an error,
or a deliberate oversight was built into
jingluo education and practice with wide
repercussions.

After listening to the director of the Lincoln

Detox school, Mutulu Shakur, and speaking
with the other faculty, Richard Delaney,
Walter Bosque and Wafiya, who were all
drug counselors in the satellite clinic where
this orientation was held, I approached
Mutulu and spoke to him in French
mistakenly assuming he studied in French in
Montreal. When he saw that I was fluent and
in fact had worked as a translator, he asked if
I would translate some materials they had in
French which Mario Wexu had stressed were
very important to add to the teaching
materials for their new program. As I began
translating some articles, I was immediately
hooked, and the course of my professional
life was altered forever. I became a student in
the first class.

Montreal, the South Bronx and the

Early Days
In the Spring of 1977 a colleague of mine in
the human services field invited me to attend
an open house announcing the Lincoln
Detox School of Acupuncture in the South
Bronx. We went and listened to a fascinating
story of Black and Puerto-Rican activists who
were working as drug counselors at Lincoln
hospital. They had heard of ear acupuncture
being used to detox addicts in East Asia, and
that news lead them to search for possible
acupuncture training closer to home. They
learned of the Quebec Institute of
Acupuncture in Montreal founded by Oscar
Wexu, a Romanian physiotherapist who fled
the Nazi invasion and moved to Paris, where
he learned acupuncture. He next made his
way to Montreal where he settled with his
family. He began practicing acupuncture and
eventually founded the Quebec Institute of
Acupuncture sometime in the 1960s.

When our teachers got the opportunity to go

to the PRC to study acupuncture for the
summer (of our first year), three of us were
put in charge of running the acupuncture
clinic that they had established. Armed only
with the Chinese text cited above, but already
trained to needle and palpate for tender
acupuncture points, the students staffed this
clinic all summer under the legal oversight of
two physicians from Lincoln Hospital who
worked in the hospitals main detox unit,

and who had become certified in

acupuncture under a Lincoln Hospital
research protocol. These doctors were John
Lichtenstein (Dr. John) and Mike Smith.

Black and Puerto-Rican activists and

militants who were bringing this medicine to
one of the poorest and most medically
underserved neighborhoods in our country.
In that first summer where we treated
patients with our meager knowledge and
skills (but with the zest of activists ourselves
who wanted to make a difference for these
people), I saw patient after patient react to
the mere stimulation of needles manipulated
with my novice skills, saying, when I asked if
it was too uncomfortable, thats alright,
thats good, I can feel it, its working.
Trained as a philosopher, I of course asked
myself WHAT was working, and more
importantly, how did these Black and
Hispanic patients, who had never
experienced or even heard of acupuncture
before, know what to expect, let alone how to
guide us to keep going?

Very dissatisfied with the PRC text and its

Marxist interpretation of acupuncture and
Chinese medical theory (primitive Marxist
dialectics), and its lack of any philosophical
insights into the actual logic of acupuncture,
I began locating and reading French texts by
Soulie de Morant, Chamfrault and Van Nghi
in the original, and texts from England by
Felix Mann and Mary Austin. Manns
description of the regular meridians and
secondary vessels (channels and collaterals),
which included the extraordinary vessels,
fascinated me and provided a far more
comprehensive and complex system of
treatment. His descriptions were also very
similar in many respects to Chamfrault and
Van Nghis texts, whose more philosophical
and in depth exploration appealed to me
because of my own doctoral studies in French
medical anthropology, especially Michel
Foucaults The Birth of the Clinic. In that
text, Foucault studied the radical shift from a
view of disease as caused by humours that the
physician would report seeing leave the body
as layer upon layer of diseased tissue would
melt off in certain disorders, to the objective
and clinical gaze of the surgeon whose new
knowledge based on detailed autopsies
displaced the older medical view entirely.
Like the cold and calculating focus of the
surgical knife, modern clinical medicine in
France was established in such a way that
only what could be observed and touched
would be held to be true, and scientific
medicine was born.

This was a complex and fascinating cultural

event, where a Chinese medical practice old
by 2500 years was being well received by
populations in no way prepared to receive it.
My conclusion, which came as a distinct gut
instinct, was that what was happening was
something that all human beings are given to
know all along. What was these patients were
feeling stemmed from a deep bodily
engrained knowledge that lay deeper than
theories or cultures, and the proof was that
they knew the feelings as soon as they felt
them: they would share in detail the
sensations they felt moving down their legs,
penetrating deeply other places, causing them
to feel relaxed, but also more alert. And they
got better. As we felt for tight (excess) areas to
address their pain, discomfort and distress, I
learned to go to exactly the spots where they
felt the discomfort. Sometimes they would
have a strange feeling, not pain, like a
weakness or a coldness, and I learned to just
ask them to locate this on their body, and
that bodily-felt sense, as I later learned to
call this tacit form of knowledge, the
patients knowledge, tied to their experience
of illness and their story of suffering, would
guide where I treated in a way much more

Imagine my excitement when I started

reading French and English texts that quoted
the classics of acupuncture, where I read of
evils and Qi and Spirit. Here I was, a North
American white student of acupuncture,
learning a French language tradition of
acupuncture by way of Montreal, with a
strong Vietnamese influence, studying with

Background on English Language

Sources

similar to the older, classical model of

disease that Foucault portrayed in the above
text, than the sterile cold portrayal of modern
anatomy where the dead, lifeless, body
without mind or spirit, replaced the living,
spirited patients seeking medical care.

In The Meridians of Acupuncture by Felix

Mann, first published in 1964, and as
included in the collection of his early works
published as the Textbook of Acupuncture in
1987 and 1993, the author makes this
definitive statement: The aim of this book is
to describe, in words and pictures, the fiftynine meridians that constitute acupuncture.
This is the first book in the Western world to
do so (p. x).

My fascination with acupuncture was sealed

in those moments, and I am just as fascinated
today at the incongruence of practicing a
2500 year old medical approach, in a country
far removed from this medicines origins,
with decidedly North American experiences
of how this practice of acupuncture actually
worked.

He goes on to state that [m]ost Chinese

books describe the meridians under the
following five headings: main meridians,
connecting meridians, muscle meridians, divergent
meridians, extra meridians. Each of the five
groupings is subdivided into about twelve
sections for each category of meridian.//In
this book I have used the reverse
classification, having as main headings each
of the twelve organ-meridians: lung, large
intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small
intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium, triple
warmer, gallbladder, liver. Each of these
twelve sections is subdivided into four
groups: main meridians, connecting
meridians, muscle meridians, and divergent
meridians (p. x). He adds the 8 extra
meridians next. When Felix Mann discusses
the organs, he discusses each in the same
manner, as Cold/Hot and Empty/Full.

I was also acutely aware that I was studying a

medicine in modern interpretations of
classical theories, in translation (sometimes
manifold, from Chinese to Vietnamese to
French to English), and that there was no
way I could lay claim, then or now, to any
solid academic certainty about the veracity of
these texts I was reading and translating, or
of the authenticity of those from the PRC,
whose regime, while serving as a source of
inspiration for Maoist leaning militants in
our country, left me not only cold, but
horrified. This was not just a medicine in
translation.
The North American development of
acupuncture was a rediscovery, a reenactment
of a medical practice, with French Canadian,
French Vietnamese, English, non-communist
and communist Chinese, Japanese and
Korean influences that wove their way into
the fabric of acupuncture in this part of the
world in this time, making it unlike any
other.

In her text, Navigating the Channels of

Traditional Chinese Medicine, self-published
in1996 by Yitian Ni and Richard
Rosenbaum, Dr. Ni uses the same schema as
Felix Mann. Her text does not discuss the
organs in terms of Cold/Hot and
Empty/Full symptoms. Dr. Nis bibliography
mentions no texts earlier than 1979, and
those in Chinese were all modern editions of
the classical texts on acupuncture, published
by Peoples Health Publishing House, Beijing
or Shandong Scientific Publishing House,
from 1979 to 1982. These were editions of

the Su Wen, the Ling Shu, the Nan Jing, the

Zhen Jiu Da Cheng, a collection on points
from the Jia Yi Jing, as well as Chinese
Acupuncture and Moxibustion , 1987
edition, Foreign Languages Press, and
Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text
translated by John OConnor and Dan
Bensky, Eastland Press, 1981.

Manns because it gives much more useful

clinical information on point selection from
the classical channel perspective.
That notwithstanding, anyone interested in
the history and practice of channel theory is
required to read Felix Manns texts from the
1960s for information that derives from
authoritative texts being written by the
academies of Chinese medicine of Beijing,
Nanjing and Shanghai in the early days of the
formation of Traditional Chinese Medicine
in the Peoples Republic of China.

As someone who completed her TCM

training in the late 1960s in the PRC, and
taught at Colleges of Traditional Chinese
Medicine in Nanjing and Beijing during the
1970s, her training two decades later than
Felix Manns own studies in the PRC offer us
a perspective on what happened specifically
to the presentation of the jingluo in the PRC
itself over those twenty years.

French / Vietnamese Sources

As a student of the Quebec Institute of
Acupuncture and its affiliated sites known as
Lincoln Detox School of Acupuncture and
the Peoples Health Center in the South
Bronx, New York (affiliated teaching and
clinical training sites of the Quebec Institute)
from 1977 to 1980, I was required to do a
translation into English of Nguyen Van
Nghis Pathogenie et Pathologie Energetique
en Medicine Traditionnelle Chinoise, which
was the foundational textbook of the Quebec
Institute, along with the texts written by
Claude Larre, Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee
and Jean Schatz, explicating the classical
texts. While I was familiar with, and read
carefully all of Felix Manns work, I naively
and erroneously assumed it was Van Nghis
work that influenced Manns, and not the
reverse. In fact, Van Nghi cites Manns early
texts, from editions dating from 1972, five
years earlier than Van Nghis abovementioned text first appeared in print.

It is therefore very significant that she

prefaces her text on the channels with these
clarifications: Throughout my teaching
career, Channel Theory has been one of my
great enthusiasms. Over the years, I became a
specialist in the instruction of Channel
Theory, which I apply extensively in my
practice. Today, when I re-read the Huang Di
Nei Jing , the Su Wen and Ling Shus
statements on the value of Channel Theory, I
appreciate so much more the truth of its
assertions.// While teaching in American
schools of Oriental Medicine I observed that,
in an effort to provide students with sound
diagnostic and treatment principles, there is a
tendency to emphasize Zang Fu theory. This
satisfactorily addresses the needs of the
herbalist, but it subordinates those of the
acupuncturist (p. vi).
While it is ironic that Dr. Nis only textual
reference on the channels that cites older
Chinese language sources, from the late
1950s to the early 1960s is a North
American translation of a text from the PRC,
and while it is unfortunate neither she nor
Richard Rosenbaum were familiar with Felix
Manns much earlier texts covering the same
channel theory, the Tri-State College of
Acupuncture has selected her text over

In my study and translation of Van Nghis

work I was very aware of the fact that this was
based heavily on the Vietnamese Trung Y
Hoc , but overlooked the other influences
and references that Van Nghi himself cited.
One must assume that Van Nghi knew
Manns work, since he lists Manns texts in

his own bibliography, and was familiar,

therefore, with Manns claim to have
published the first work on channel theory in
a western language that covered the entirety
of jingluo theory (all 59 channels and
collaterals).

of 1958, in its second edition in 1961, served

as the foundation upon which Van Nghi
based his own text. Van Nghis text deleted
the sections on pharmacognosy and herbal
medicine from the training manuals of the
Academies of Medicine of Beijing, Shanghai,
NanJing, Canton and Hanoi, grouped
together into the Trung Y Hoc, since he was
aiming his own book at practitioners of
acupuncture and massage.

We must therefore take issue with Van

Nghis claim, in his preface to Lenergetique
humaine written with A. Chamfrault, (selfpublished, Angouleme, 1969) that With this
work, we are therefore the first to introduce
new ideas never before available in the West
(p. 11). While this book with Chamfrault
was written in 1969, the first edition of Felix
Manns The Meridians of Acupuncture was
published in 1964.

Felix Mann cites the following PRC works

in his Textbook of Acupuncture,
Butterworth/Heinemann, 1987, pp. 627-628:

When I studied in Montreal with Van Nghi

and travelled in France and read the work by
Chamfrault and Van Nghi, I always heard
the claim that it was Van Nghi who brought
the knowledge of the secondary vessels and
extraordinary vessels, the missing pieces of
the jingluo theory to complement the study
of the 12 regular meridians, ren and du mai,
to the West.

Chinese Sources from the late 1950s

and 1960s

Whether Chamfrault and Van Nghi were

familiar with Manns work on the jingluo
first published in 1964, or whether they in
fact never encountered his work until the
1972 edition cited in Van Nghis text from
1977, one thing is certain. All three authors
refer to texts on the jingluo from the late
1950s to early 1960s published in the PRC,
via Vietnam in the Trung Y Hoc (Hanoi
Publishing House) for Van Nghi, and read in
their original Chinese in the PRC in the case
of Manns work. While Van Nghi does not
list the name or exact date of the three
volume text from the PRC, published by the
Beijing Academy of Medicine, he does clarify
that the Vietnamese translation, with edits,

Zhenjiuxue Jiangyi (Lectures in

Acupuncture and Moxibustion
compiled by the Acupuncture
Research Section of the Shanghai
Academy of Chinese Medicine;
published by the Shanghai Scientific
and Technical Publishing House,
Shanghai, 1960);
Zhongyixue Gailun (A Summary of
Chinese Medicine; compiled by the
Nanjing Academy of Chinese
Medicine; published by the Peoples
Hygiene Publishing House, Beijing,
1959);
Zhenjiuxue (The Study of
Acupuncture; compiled by the
Acupuncture Research Section of
the NanJing Academy of Chinese
Medicine; published by the Jiangshu
Peoples Publishing House, Beijing,
1959);
Chongjian Jibing Zhenjiu Zhilao
Bianlan (A General Survey of
Common Diseases and Their
Treatment by Acupuncture in
Tabular Form; compiled by Beijing
School of Chinese Medicine;
published by Peoples Hygiene
Publishing House, Beijing, 1960);
Jingluoxue Tushuo (An Illustrated
Survey of Meridians; compiled by
Hiujan and Zhu Ru-Gong assisted
by Wu Shao-de, Wu Guo-zhang and
Zhang Shi-yi; published by Shanghai

A Great Discovery with a Twist

Scientific and Technical Publishing

House, Shanghai, 1959);
Zhengiu Dacheng (Summary of
Famous Ancient Works on
AcupunctureMing; by Jang Gizhou; published by The Peoples
Hygiene Publishing House, Beijing,
1963);
Zhengiu Gefu Hyangie (Selection of
Songs and Rhymes on Acupuncture
with Explanations; by Chen Bi lui
and Zhen zhuo-ren; published by the
Peoples Hygiene Publishing House,
Beijing, 1962);
Zhung guo Jihye Dacidian (The
Encyclopedia of Chinese Medical
Science in 4 Volumes); edited by
Shai Kwon (NOTE: there is no date
nor publishing information
provided).

It would seem that a very fervent period in

the study of acupuncture in general, and the
channels and collaterals specifically, existed
in the late 1950s to early 1960s in the
Peoples Republic of China. Early English
language texts by Felix Mann, and French
texts by Chamfrault and Van Nghi, reference
these PRC texts, via Vietnam in the case of
the French resources. There is mention in
Van Nghi, in Mann, and in OConnor and
Benskys translation, of three or four volumes
assembled by academies of Chinese medicine
in Beijing, Nan Ching and Shanghai during
this period, that were assembled into one
volume.
Imagine my glee when, with the tremendous
sleuth work of the Chinese Medicine Data
Base in Portland Oregon, and the help of
Jonathan Schell, publisher at CMDB, I read
their translation of the Table of Contents of
Zhongyixue Gailun right before
Thanksgiving, 2010, the second in the list of
texts cited above by Felix Mann that served
more and more as the basis for jingluo theory
and clinical practice in his subsequent
editions of The Meridians of Acupuncture.
In comparing this texts Table of Contents
with Van Nghis Pathogenie et Pathologie
Energetiques en Medecine Chinoise there
remains no doubt: the Trung Y Hoc from
Hanoi is a translation of Zhongyixue Gailun
published in 1959 in the early days of the
Peoples Republic of China, authored by a
collective from several academies of Chinese
medicine for the new colleges of TCM that
were being established.

Nguyen Van Nghi cites the following works

from the PRC and Vietnam:

Study of the Nei ching , Center for

Jingluo Study; Academy of Medicine;
Peoples Hygiene Publishing House,
1959;
Chinese Medicine; Study of
Acupuncture and the Jingluo,
Academy of Thien Tay, Vietnam,
1959;
Introduction to Chinese Medicine ;
NanJing Academy of Medicine,
Peoples Hygiene Publishing House,
1958;
Acupuncture Systematization of the
Jingluo, Duong Ke Cha, Peoples
Hygiene Publishing House, 1959;
Jingluo and Acupuncture in Chinese
Medicine; Research Section of the
Shanghai Hospital # 1, Peoples
Publishing House, Beijing, 1959.

Mann clarifies that with this foundational

knowledge of meridian theory he was able to
give a more accurate description of the full
range of regular meridians and secondary
vessels than appeared in his earlier versions,
which were more influenced by Soulie de
Morant and German authors. Van Nghis
text last published in 1977 would therefore

appear to be an edited translation of one of

these one-volume foundational texts, via the
Hanoi edited translation of 1962. Likewise,
OConnor and Benskys edited translation
also seems to be based on a totally revised
and expanded one-volume version (1974) of a
four volume work published by the Shanghai
College of Traditional Medicine in 1962.

A transitional text in English, The Essentials

of Chinese Acupuncture, was the basis for
CAM, and here already the shift from focus
on jingle pattern identification to Snafu
pattern identification is evident. This text is a
translation into English of a PRC text from
1964, the Zhongguo Zhenjiuxue Gai Yao.
The English-language text was compiled, and
translated by the Beijing, Shanghai and
NanJing Colleges of Traditional Chinese
Medicine and the Institute of the Academy
of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Foreign
Languages Press, Beijing, PRC, 1980.

These two translations from the exact same

time period in the formulation of TCM
theory of the jingluo are not of the same
PRC one-volume edition. While OConnor
and Benskys translation contains only 50
pages specifically on jingluo theory and
symptoms, Van Nghis text contains 200
pages. Manns text contains 160 pages
specifically detailing jingluo theory and
jingluo pattern identification. Mann clarified
that while the first printing of his first book,
Acupuncture: The Ancient Chinese Art of
Healing owed much to Soulie de Morant,
Hubotter, Chamfrault, Veith and other
authors mentioned in the bibliography. Later
reprints and also the Meridians of
Acupuncture were increasingly based on the
Zhongyixue Gailun of the NanJing Academy
of Chinese Medicine first published in 1959,
and the Zhenjiuxue Jiangyi of the
Acupuncture Research Section of the
Shanghai Academy of Chinese Medicine first
published in 1960 (pp. ix-x, Textbook of
Acupuncture).

The Road Not Taken

When I first began teaching in several
acupuncture schools in North America and
Europe, I was always asked to teach this
French meridian information and
demonstrate its practice. I was always
somewhat confused, as colleagues my age had
read Mann and other English authors
influenced by his work, as well as English
translations of French works as part of the
Occidental Institute of Oriental Medicine,
which ran a correspondence course in the
late 1970s. To me this just seemed to be
meridian (jingluo) acupuncture based on 59
or 71 channels and collaterals (depending on
whether one counts the transverse luo
anastomoses that shunt from one meridian
to its pair as a set of vessels).

Given the fact that foundational texts were

being compiled from 1958-1962 in the PRC,
usually by Academies of Chinese medicine,
how is it that what has come down to us in
the English speaking world, namely Chinese
Acupuncture and Moxibustion (CAM),
contains so little jingluo theory, where
jingluo pattern identification seems to appear
for academic purposes only in a few pages,
compared to the large discussion of ZangFu
pattern differentiation which is clearly the
basis for the treatment strategies in the last
section of the book on treatment of disease.

It seems fairly clear that it was during this

time period, when the foundational texts for
the new colleges of TCM were being
finalized, that acupuncture channel theory
and practice was subordinated, to paraphrase
Yitian Ni in the preface to her own book, to
ZangFu theory and pattern identification to
the benefit of Chinese herbal medicine?
While this was a road not taken by the PRC
in establishing its new TCM approach, this
meridian theory and meridian practice made
their ways to English speaking countries as

well as French speaking ones, including

French Canada, and hence greatly influenced
the early days of the AOM profession ion
North America.

Referring to works in the Peoples Republic

of China, Dr. Wang laments: Most modern
acupuncture literature emphasizes what
might be termed experiential points
dissertations on which points to use for
treating specific diseases. The result is that
the complex, systemic theoretical models of
classical acupuncture have been reduced to a
shadow medicine that searches for nothing
more than points to treat specific symptoms
or diseases. This approach has not only
dramatically slowed the evolution of the
medicine, it has also served to narrow the
scope of conditions treated with acupuncture
in many modern hospitals and clinics. // My
hope is that this work will serve to plant the
seeds for the future growth of classical
channel theory in other countries throughout
the world. // For those of you reading this
text, I hope that you will not become trapped
in the surface of acupuncture therapy,
striving only to learn experiential points [].
Bring the medicine to life by incorporating
the system of channel theory, expand its
applications, and innovate from a place of
theoretical integrity. The field of acupuncture
must continue to develop and expand,
treating the new diseases of the modern era
while always keeping a firm grasp on the
basics (p. xvi).

The way in which the profession of

Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine was
developed in the United States starting in
1982, with a compromise that considered the
foundational texts for the schools and for the
national boards to be those few from or
based on TCM colleges in the PRC, is
outside the scope of this book. Suffice it to
say that the same orthodoxy, inspired by
Maoist zeal, that lead to establishment of
only one version of Chinese medicine in the
PRC surfaced in this country, to the point
that texts from English and French authors
were relegated to interesting curiosities, but
not foundational texts. All colleges had to
begin to teach TCM, if they hoped to have
their students pass NCCAOM national
board examinations. And during the last two
decades, English texts on meridian theory
and practice have gone out of print (those of
Low, Van Buren and Mann), and Van Nghis
texts as well.
The push for domination of Chinese
Medicine practice by the PRC has proven
very strong, in the form of Traditional
Chinese Medicine, and yet it has not totally
quelled what I would like to refer to as the
Other Acupuncture, based on jingluo pattern
differentiation far more than on ZangFu
pattern identification, which characterizes
TCM acupuncture theory and practice.

With the discovery of the text that served as

the basis for Felix Mann and Nguyen Van
Nghis work, and for early North American
AOM teaching and practice starting in 1964
until the mid-1980s, I hope to clarify in this
project that this Other Acupuncture, which
the Tri-State College of Acupuncture has
been teaching for the last 3 decades, is in fact
not a European fantasy, but is grounded
solidly in mainland Chinese theory and
practice as it existed in 1959, right before this
rich and classically inspired practice was
reduced to the shadow medicine Dr. Wang
refers to above.

The English speaking AOM world is in fact

witnessing a resurgence of classical channel
theory in North America. Dr. Wang Ji-Yi
states it succinctly:
In his preface to Applied Channel Theory
with Jason Robertson, Dr. Wang stresses that
channel theory is one of the fundamental
pillars of Chinese Medicine, and is at the
very core of acupuncture (p. xv).

I do not believe this is the only way to think

about and practice Classical Chinese
Acupuncture, but I will show that it is most

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definitely a viable, and solidly grounded way

based on centuries of knowledge and clinical
practice in Mainland China before the
Cultural Revolution, which violently shut the
doors to this rich past.

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