Meridians under the skin

Abstract

The physical nature of the acupuncture meridian system is currently the subject of enquiry. The original structural descriptions of the meridian system contained in the 'Huangdi Neijing', the ancient Chinese medical text also known as the 'Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine', are detailed and specific. The 'Huangdi Neijing' states that dissection was used as a tool for investigating the anatomy of the human body. If dissection formed part of the basis for the anatomical essays in the original text, then it should still be possible to use it to find the same physical structures today. The words used in the 'Huangdi Neijing' to describe meridians repeatedly contain the character for silk. This occurs in Jing Luo, the character for the meridian network, and in Jing Mai, the character for an individual channel. The fascia of the body resembles silk in appearance. It pervades the body, wrapping around every structure, and either separating or connecting these body parts. An obvious question arises, was the character for silk chosen to describe meridians because this was what was observed during dissections performed by the authors of the 'Huangdi Neijing'? If this hypothesis holds true, then the Chinese characters that were originally used to describe the meridian network could literally describe the nature of the physical substrate for acupuncture - the silk-like fascial tissue of the body.