ABSTRACT
The tradition of medicine in China has probably changed less than that of any other country over the centuries1. The Yellow Emperor Hwang-Ti, who lived around 2700 bc, originated Chinese medicine with his work Nei Ching. This was devoted to internal medicine yet scarcely mentioned anatomy. The Chinese approach to health and ill health was founded on two opposing principles: the yin and the yang. The yin was a negative, female quality. The yang was active and masculine. As with the Hippocratic humours, a proper balance between the two was considered essential to health. Illness developed when the breath, the life spirit, which governed the interplay between the yin and yang, became blocked. The purpose of acupuncture, the insertion of gold or silver needles into the skin in a particular pattern, was to prevent or ameliorate such blockages.
