TCM vs CCM and sham acupuncture

[Guest guest]

Having been exposed to some of Jeffery Yuen's

interpretations of different ATx treatment styles

associated the various channel systems, as

interpreted from the Han classics, I was struck,

in reading the recent reports of the large German

study of acupuncture for headaches (both tension

and migraine), that the " sham acupuncture "

protocol cited there actually shared points of

similarity with " sinew meridian " treatment. I

also noted that in some publications of those

results, the authors also used another term for

" sham " I think it was " alternative " , or

something like that, i.e. less derogatory than " sham " .

 

As others here have recently noted, acupuncture

styles, new and old, abound. And effectiveness

involves more than simple point selection. (See

also Scheid and Bensky's article on

" Intentionality… " , which has been cited several times in this forum.)

 

As for TCM acupuncture, Jeffrey once noted that

they (the 20th century fathers of TCM) tended to

select what in some traditions were points

considered useful in emergency situations, i.e.

points that relatively easily produce noticeable effects.

 

Another footnote: As was pointed out here

recently, TCM as we know it (i.e. usually from

school days) is largely geared towards

standardized teaching. This reminds me Paul

Unschuld once referring to what we call " western

medicine " as " school medicine " apparently a

German usage, as he is primarily the head of the

department at the Munich Uni responsible for

imparting the history of medicine to German

medical students, and secondarily an authority on

the history of Chinese medicine. The parallel is

pretty clear, as the formation of TCM (again, in

the narrow, contemporary sense) was/is heavily

modeled on " western medicine " . (See Kim Taylor's

book on the history of (recent) TCM, also much cited earlier in this forum.)