Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text

Rating:
Summary: A Voluminous (only slightly flawed) Mainstay
Review: This book got short shrift in our education even though we bought in in the first year or two.

It is essential for its coverage of auricular and scalp acupuncture (not to mention other imaging styles such as "nose acupuncture"). It also has a slightly different view of channel pathology symptoms from "Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion" (CAM) or "Foundations of Chinese Medicine."

The way they organize the body points (by regions of the body and commonality of usage), however, is too counter-intuitive to be useful in practice.

In fact, I think that Deadman's Manual of Acupuncture would make a much better body point reference than Shanghai, CAM, or Foundations... Deadman's book is entirely based on the classics and cites its sources.

They really should put out a new edition of Shanghai with better body point organization.

But, for the student and practitioner, this is a gem.

Rating:
Summary: Still a worthwhile reference
Review: When I was in college, we learned the ill-fated Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion for exams, but this was the book we actually used in acupuncture classes. We called it the "Shanghai book," as it is an abridged translation of a four-volume set, originally published in Chinese in 1962 by the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, revised in 1974. Since most of our teachers were from Shanghai, this book was the favorite for teaching English-speaking students.

It includes a thorough discussion of basic acupuncture theory, an overview of acupuncture points organized by anatomical region (which makes it perhaps more useful as a reference than as a textbook), a large collection of material on technique, including cupping, suture implants, lymphatic piercing, acupuncture microsystems, and injection therapy. Unusual is the inclusion of specific information on channel diagnosis by palpation and observation; most other English-language books on Chinese acupuncture do not offer any details on these methods. A portion of the book is devoted to examples of acupuncture treatment, organized according to Western syndromes.

No book can give the whole story of the practice of Chinese acupuncture, but Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text is an important source of information on modern Chinese practices for the intermediate student.

Rating:
Summary: Still a worthwhile reference
Review: When I was in college, we learned the ill-fated Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion for exams, but this was the book we actually used in acupuncture classes. We called it the "Shanghai book," as it is an abridged translation of a four-volume set, originally published in Chinese in 1962 by the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, revised in 1974. Since most of our teachers were from Shanghai, this book was the favorite for teaching English-speaking students.

It includes a thorough discussion of basic acupuncture theory, an overview of acupuncture points organized by anatomical region (which makes it perhaps more useful as a reference than as a textbook), a large collection of material on technique, including cupping, suture implants, lymphatic piercing, acupuncture microsystems, and injection therapy. Unusual is the inclusion of specific information on channel diagnosis by palpation and observation; most other English-language books on Chinese acupuncture do not offer any details on these methods. A portion of the book is devoted to examples of acupuncture treatment, organized according to Western syndromes.

No book can give the whole story of the practice of Chinese acupuncture, but Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text is an important source of information on modern Chinese practices for the intermediate student.