Acupuncture has a clearly recorded history of about 2,000 years, but some authorities claim that it has been practiced in China for some 4,000 years. The Chinese believe that the practice of acupuncture began during the Stone Age when stone knives or sharp edged tools, described by the character 'Bian', were used to puncture and drain abscesses. In fact the Chinese character 'Bian' means the 'use of a sharp edged stone to treat disease', and the modern Chinese character 'Bi', representing a disease of pain, is almost certainly derived from the use of 'Bian stones' for the treatment of painful complaints.

   The origin of Chinese medicine is a fascinating story and acupuncture represents only one facet of their medical system. The first recorded attempt at conceptualizing and treating disease dates back to about 1500 BC during the Shang dynasty. Tortoise shells with inscriptions dating from that time have been found, and it is thought that these were used for divination in the art of healing.

  The Chinese developed a highly complex and sophisticated system of empirical laws based on countless observations of illness and response to treatment. These laws resulted in a number of ground rules aimed at guiding a doctor to the improvement of his patient's condition. The astonishing fact is that the application of these apparently odd-sounding laws do appear to work in a highly significant proportion of patients. It can clearly be surmised that if it did no work, acupuncture would not have been adopted within both Western and Eastern cultures to such a degree.

  The Chinese believed that in addition to being in balance, the energy or life force (which the Chinese called chi) had to be able to circulate freely around the meridians. If a break occurred anywhere in this circulation, illness would result. An example is backache, which is viewed by the Chinese as a blockage in the "chi" circulating in the bladder meridian. The remedy was, put in the simplest terms, to insert a needle at the point of discomfort, thus encouraging flow to re-establish itself.