Acupuncture Anesthesia: An Anesthetic Method Combining Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine

Abstract

Acupuncture anesthesia is a new anesthetic method created by our medical workers by inheriting and developing traditional Chinese acupuncture therapy and combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine. This article reviews the course of development of acupuncture anesthesia, and introduces some of its methods currently in use. More than 80,000 cases of surgical operations have been performed under acupuncture anesthesia in Shanghai district, the data obtained from 10 kinds of operations on a total of 5,414 cases are summarized. Some of our inferences drawn from the clinical application of acupuncture anesthesia and from neurophysiologic studies on the analgesic effect of acupuncture are discussed.