Single Point Therapy in Chinese Acupuncture

Acupuncture therapy with single point is a strategy of killing two birds with one stone. Needling a meridian meeting point is to needle one point to treat two meridians. When the cause involves two or more internal organs, it may be treated by the meeting points of meridians. The eight meeting points between extraordinary meridians and twelve master meridians refer to the points at which energy of the eight extraordinary meridians meet with that of the twelve master meridians. Needling at such meeting points is capable of producing a double effect of the twelve master meridians and the eight extraordinary meridians. Chinese acupuncture was originated in Yellow Emperor's Classics in which 66 diseases were treated by single point. In the first acupuncture classic entitled, First Classic Of Acupuncture And Moxibustion published in 282, a total of over 800 diseases were listed for acupuncture treatment among which 728 diseases were treated by single points. It was not until the publication of Living Classic Of Acupuncture And Moxibustion in 1220 that acupuncture therapy with multiple points became popular. The first national Chinese conference on acupuncture therapy with single point was held in 1989, with 81 representatives attending and 151 theses presented at the conference; followed by the second conference in 1991, and the third conference in 1992. There are a few characteristics of this type of acupuncture therapy. First of all, it puts emphasis on syndromes differentiation. Take headache as an example, headache in the forehead should be treated by Li4, headache on one side of the head should be treated by Lu7. In the second place, different methods of treatment should be applied, depending on the nature of diseases, such as needling, moxibustion, point injection, and cupping etc. In the third place, different treatment strategies should be applied to deal with different syndromes of diseases, such as toning up deficiency and sedating excess, sedating the child and toning up the mother.