ABSTRACT
Five thousand years ago, give or take a century or two, an anonymous person or persons in China discovered that the body has an energy system that follows specific pathways referred to as channels or meridians. Predating the Chinese findings by a couple of thousand years, the same bioenergy system, albeit with unique distinctions and treatment procedures, was elucidated in India. There is also evidence that similar knowledge sprang up previously in other parts of the world, including Egypt, Europe, Arabia, Brazil, among the Bantu tribes of Africa, and the Eskimos. Goodheart (1987) points out that “[t]he papyrus ebers of 1150 B.C., one of the most important of the ancient Egyptian medical treatises, refers to a book on the subject of muscles which would correspond to the 12 meridians of acupuncture” (p. 10).
