



Produced by deaurider, Turgut Dincer and the Online
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  A TREATISE

  ON

  ACUPUNCTURATION, &c.


  DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION,

  TO

  ASTLEY COOPER, ESQ. F. R. S.


  Plummer and Brewis, Printers, Love Lane, Eastcheap.


[Illustration: ACUPUNCTURATION NEEDLES.]




  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.


  BY

  _JAMES MORSS CHURCHILL_,

  MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS IN LONDON.


  _LONDON_:

  PUBLISHED BY SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL,

  STATIONER’S COURT;

  SOLD BY E. COX AND SON, ST. THOMAS’S STREET; J. CALLOW,
  PRINCE’S STREET, SOHO; MESSRS. UNDERWOOD, FLEET STREET;
  BURGESS AND HILL, WINDMILL STREET; AND J. COX, BERNERS STREET,
  OXFORD STREET.


  TO

  ASTLEY COOPER, ESQ.


  THE STEADY FRIEND AND PATRON OF HUMBLE MERIT,

  THE AUTHOR RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBES

  THIS LITTLE TREATISE;

  LESS FROM PRESUMPTION OF ITS DESERVING

  HIS APPROBATION,

  THAN

  AS A MARK OF RESPECT

  FOR SPLENDID ACQUIREMENTS,

  AND OF

  GRATITUDE,

  TOWARDS A GREAT MASTER.




TREATISE

ON

ACUPUNCTURATION.




_Preliminary Remarks._


If the medical profession merit the reproach, of being easily deluded
into an admiration of novelty, then I need use no apology for
introducing the following pages to notice, nor will my subject stand in
need of prefatory allurements to obtain attention; but if on the other
hand, a rational theory, built on sound logical reasoning, be the only
evidence to which any value can be attached, then will my efforts have
been unavailing and fruitless. Under the impression, however, that
there exists a desire for speculation and discovery on the one hand,
regulated and qualified by a moderate and proper degree of scepticism
on the other, I shall presume a medium of the two extremes, and
proceed without apology or preface to my subject, trusting, that the
interesting facts which I have to relate, will elicit such attention
and investigation, as will kindle a desire in some men, at least, to
become acquainted with a process, which appears to rival the most
successful operations for the relief of human sufferings.

I should not have taken the tales which are told of the wonderful cures
effected by this operation amongst the original founders of it, as
sufficient authority for recommending it, nor would I admit the fables
which are promulgated by these people, as evidence of its efficacy, had
not this efficacy been witnessed by European spectators on its native
soil, and at length experienced in our hemisphere; and even, latterly,
in our own country.

The operation of acupuncturation has been seen by so few Europeans,
that our books have made us acquainted with little more than its
name. It is of Asiatic origin, and China and Japan peculiarly claim
it as their own. A writer in the year 1802, mentions a discovery of
its having been practised by the natives of America, and refers to
Dampier’s voyages for an account of it; but I have in vain followed
Capt. Dampier’s relation of his adventures, in crossing from the
South to the North Sea, over the Isthmus of Darien, for any account
of the operation, for he does not so much as name it. He speaks of a
work intended to be published by his surgeon, Mr. Lionel Wafer, who
accompanied the expedition, and to which he refers his readers for an
account of the manners and customs of the interior of the country. Mr.
Wafer was detained, from an accident, a considerable time amongst
the Darien Indians, and did, on his return to England, publish this
book, which I have therefore been at the trouble of perusing, but do
not learn from it, that the operation of acupuncturation was practised
in that part of America: it is true, Mr. Wafer describes a method of
blood-letting employed by the natives, which is somewhat correspondent
to acupuncturation, but both