Although commonly regarded as a late twentieth century phenomenon, acupuncture use in Britain has a surprisingly long history, beginning with its seventeenth century transmission from China and Japan. Acupuncture was in use in the great hospitals of Paris before a second stage of transmission and translation brought it to nineteenth century Britain. Acupuncture's first wave of popularity and its results in British medical practice can be examined through examples drawn from the Lancet, the BMJ and other medical periodicals. This historical transmission of acupuncture to the UK can be fruitfully compared to its modern analogue, and historical patterns of acupuncture use can be compared with those displayed in contemporary Britain.
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References
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‘Meeting of the Westminster Medical Society‘, Lancet1833 Mar;499: 817–8.
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For examples of transmission of materia medica see FoustC.Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 1992. BrockwayL.Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens.New York: Academic Press; 1979. For examples of techniques, see WujastykD. ‘Medicine in India‘ in van AlphenJ, ArisA, editors. Oriental Medicine: An Illustrated Guide to the Asian Arts of Healing. London: Serindia Publications; 1995. p. 19–37, and for a classic discussion of medicine and technology, see ReiserS.Medicine and the Reign of Technology. London: Cambridge University Press; 1978.
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Their current hostility is rendered somewhat ironic given their historical support of the technique; in its first years, the Lancet actively supported acupuncture use, while British medics have published their research on acupuncture in the BMJ and its precursors since the 1840s.
4.
For discussions of professional hostility, see SaksM. ‘The Paradox of Incorporation: Acupuncture and the Medical Profession in Modern Britain,’ in SaksM, editor. Alternative Medicine in Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1992. p. 183–198. For a brief discussion of the BMJ in particular, see BivinsR. ‘Acupuncture and Innovation: ‘New Age’ medicine in the NHS‘, in StantonJ, editor. Configuring Innovation in Twentieth Century Medicine and Health: Diffusion and resistance in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, the US and Japan. Routledge; Forthcoming 2001.
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A longer and much more detailed version of this history is available in BivinsR.Acupuncture, Expertise and Cross-Cultural Medicine.Basingstoke: Palgrave; 2000, from which several sections of this paper are extracted.
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See Cranmer-ByngJL. An Embassy to China. p. 279–303 (an extended extract of Gillan's unpublished notes).
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‘Art. XIV. [Review of recent work on Acupuncture]‘, The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal1827; 27(90): 190–200, at pp. 191.
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ChurchillJM. A Treatise on Acupuncturation; Being a Description of a Surgical Operation Originally Peculiar to the Japonese and Chinese, and by them denominated Zin-King, Now Introduced into European Practice, with Directions for its Performance and Cases Illustrating its Success.London: Simpkin and Marshall; 1822. pp. 85.
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Churchill, Treatise. p. 71–2. My emphasis. Nor was Jukes wrong to be so cautious. Even in the late twentieth century – long after the heyday of animal magnetism – descriptions of acupuncture—anaesthesia were sufficient to stir memories of animal magnetism among acupuncture's opponents. See McRobertGR. ‘Anaesthesia by Acupuncture‘ BMJ1972 August 19;3:472.
23.
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James Reston, the journalist in question, was treated with acupuncture for pain and paralytic ileus after undergoing a standard appendicectomy (under regional anaesthesia). See his account at http://www.acupuncture.com/Experiences/Times.htm.
27.
See CopperauldI.‘Anaesthesia by Acupuncture’. BMJ1972 Oct 28;4: 232–3. HamiltonS. ‘Anaesthesia by Acupuncture‘. BMJ1973 Feb 17; 1: 420. MacintoshR. ‘Tests of Acupuncture‘. BMJ1973 Aug 25;3: 454–5.
28.
For example, accounts note, with varying degrees of approbation and/or dismissal, that patients given acupuncture anaesthesia were also often given intensive pre—preparation for their operations, to enable them to best assist the surgeons during their operations.
