ABSTRACT

In England there was a very similar wave of activity during the first half of the century. Acupuncture was sufficiently well known for a country general practitioner like Coley (1, 2) to write about it in 1802, having performed paracentesis on an infant with tympanites.d He had the senki I of ten Rhijne and Kaempfer very much in mind, and acupunctured such patients at the loci that Kaempfer had described, as nearly as he could. But the first great protagonist was J. M. Churchill (1, 2), who published two books on it in 1821 and 1828. The first was entitled: 'A Treatise on Acupuncturation; being a Description of a Surgical Operation originally peculiar to the Japanese and Chinese, and by them denominated Zin-King,e now introduced into European Practice, with Directions for its Performance, and Cases illustrating its Success.' f The second book added many case-histories. Most of Churchill's achievements were with what he called 'local diseases of the muscular and fibrous structures of the body', i.e. rheumatic conditions, sciatica, back-pain, muscle strains, trismus, often traumatic in origin (e.g. after falls); but he also had some good results in dropsical states, oedema, anasarca, etc. (cf. Fig. 76). He clearly observed the te chhiz effect, the immediate numbness or heaviness, though not knowing about this from Chinese writings, and the speed of its onset inspired him to write:

a Feucht (I), pp. 34, 41. b Feucht (I), p. 38. Sweden contributed an interesting Uppsala thesis by Landgren (I) in 1829. C (I), art. Akupunktur. d See Haller (I) and Anon. (141), who both give good accounts of the development of the practice

of acupuncture in England. e Chen Ching?3 f The book was translated into German in 1824 and French in 1825 so that it had considerable

influence on the continent. Among several recent \vriters interested in Churchill, Lippert & Lippert (I) are to be mentioned.