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Bih-Cheng Chen1* Ting-Yu Huang1
1School of Post-Baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
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The meridians and acupuncture points are one of the invaluable treasures in Traditional Chinese Medicine. With collaborative efforts, the World Health Organization (WHO) had stipulated a standardized system of meridians and acupuncture points that can be used universally since 2006. These achievements are also being reflected in the current textbooks which have provided explicit teaching materials of the meridians and acupuncture points for the new learners. However, the present Meridian-acupoint diagrams which are plotted using lines connecting the acupuncture points, are in fact not the complete Map of Meridian Pathways explained by the ancients. Hence in this paper, we proposed a discussion on the Foot Bladder meridian pathway so as to improve the current model through the following 2 questions: 1. Are there only 2 branches of pathway at the back of the body where the Bladder meridian descends? 2. Is there any intersection of Bladder meridian at the posterior aspect of the thigh? Through the classical literatures of The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon (Huang Di Nei Jing),The Systematized Canon of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Zhen Jiu Jia Yi Jing)written by Huang-Fu Mi and The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency (Zhou Hou Bei Ji Fang) written by Ge Hong, as well as the modern studies of acupuncture-induced sensation transmission and anatomical discussions, we discover that there should be 3 branches of pathway at the back of the body where the Foot Bladder meridian descends. We have named them separately as the medial branch, the middle branch and the lateral branch. The middle and lateral branches are currently well-known as the branches that are 1.5 cun and 3 cun lateral to the Governing Vessel on the midline respectively. The medial branch, which is 0.5 cun lateral to the Governing Vessel, is related to the Hua Tuo’s Paravertebral Points (Hua Tuo Jia Ji) that are classified under the Extraordinary Vessels and the Four Liao Points (four sacral foramina) that are classified under the Primary Meridians. In addition, we have also discovered that there is no actual intersection of the Foot Bladder meridian at the posterior aspect of the thigh. The intersection on the diagram is an illusion created due to the sequential connection of the acupuncture point numbers.
Keywords：Bladder meridian, Bladder channel, Hua Tuo’s Paravertebral Points, Hua Tuo Jia Ji, Huang-Fu Mi, The Systematized Canon of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Zhen Jiu Jia Yi Jing, Ge Hong
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211.10 经络图与经穴图之研究─以膀胱经为例
