



Produced by deaurider, Turgut Dincer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)







  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 the intention and the effect are widely
different. This operation is effected in the following manner: the
patient is taken to a river, and seated upon a stone in the middle of
it. A native, dexterous in the use of the bow, now shoots a number of
small arrows into various parts of the body. These arrows are prepared
purposely for this operation, and are so constructed, that they
cannot penetrate beyond the skin, the veins of which, opened by the
puncturation, furnish numerous streams of blood, which flow down the
body of the patient. If this be the operation which has given rise to
the idea, that acupuncturation is practised by the American natives,
the conclusion is evidently erroneous, as it is simply a method of
blood-letting, and is generally resorted to for the cure of fever.
Now, acupuncturation has no reference whatever to bleeding, and it
is rare, that even a drop of blood follows either the introduction
or withdrawing of the needle; nor does it appear, that the Chinese
and Japanese, with whom it originated, intended it as a method of
abstracting blood, which is proved, not only by the consequences of
the operation, but by the manner in which it is performed, and the
nature of the diseases to which it is applied. If it could have been
established, that the natives of the American Isthmus were acquainted
with it, it would have been a curious, as well as an interesting
enquiry, to ascertain whence they derived it.

It is a little strange, that the surprising efficacy, of which so
much has been boasted by its eastern professors, and the safety,
at least, with which acupuncturation may be performed, having been
so fully demonstrated; it is strange I repeat, that it has not met
with an earlier encouragement amongst us. It is probable, that the
hyperbole in which it has been related, has induced the sober minds
of our Northern soil, to treat these relations as the fictions of
Eastern imagination, and to reject them without examination, as
fables calculated only for amusement. There have not, however, been
wanting sensible minds, and men of talent and reputation, to recommend
this operation; and the names of Ten-Rhyne, Bidloo, Kœmpfer, and
Vicq-d’Azyr, stand conspicuous on the list of those who speak in its
favour; but still, neither of them had undertaken to put its merits
to the test, by actual experiment. Several practitioners in France,
however, have now taken up this neglected operation, and their
report verifies the praises which have been bestowed by others upon
it. My attention was lately directed to it by my friend Mr. Scott,
of Westminster,