Master Tong's Acupuncture: An Ancient Alternative Style in Modern Clinical Practice

378 Pages·1992·2.68 MB·English

by  Miriam Lee

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Page i
Master Tong's Acupuncture
An Ancient Alternative Style in Modern Clinical Practice
Translation & Commentary by
Miriam Lee, O.M.D.
With Preface Written by
Richard Tan, O.M.D., L. Ac.

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Page ii
Published by:
Blue Poppy Press
3450 Penrose Place, Sutie 110
Boulder, CO 80301
First Edition October, 1992
Second Printing, September, 1994
Second Edition, November, 1998
ISBN 0-936185-37-6
Library of Congress #-92-73391
Copyright Ó Miriam Lee
All rights reserved. No par of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transcribed in any form, by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or other means, or translated into any
other language without prior written permission of the publisher.
The information in this book is given in good faith. However, the translators
and the publishers cannot be held responsible for any error or omission. Nor
can they be held in any way responsible for treatment given on the basis of
information contained in this book. The publishers make this information
available to English readers for scholarly and research purposes only.
The publishers do not advocate nor endorse self-medication by laypersons.
Chinese medicine is a professional medicine. Laypersons interested in
availing themselves of the treatments described in this book should seek out
a qualified professional practitioner of Chinese medicine.
COMP Designation: Original work
Printed at Johnson Printing on elementially chlorine free paper
Cover design by Honora Lee Wolfe and Anne Rue
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
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Page iii
PREFACE TO MASTER TONG'S ACUPUNCTURE:
2ND EDITION
by Richard Tan, O.M.D., L.Ac.
After coming to the U.S. some 20 years ago I was astounded at the
relatively low level of clinical efficacy accepted as normal by the American
TCM trained acupuncture community. The highly standardized TCM
format adopted for curriculum purposes by U.S. acupuncture colleges does
make it possible to educate and test large numbers of practitioners in a
consistent way. Establishing a baseline level of competency is an important
service and the schools do this job well. However, standardization causes
TCM acupuncture to suffer from the serious side effect of
oversimplification. In terms of the rich and diverse tradition of theory and
practice that has evolved through the centuries into Chinese medicine, what
is taught in the U.S. as TCM represents only a conceptual skeleton, and one
with a few bones missing at that. As a result, acupuncturists in this country
are often at a disadvantage when it comes to obtaining a consistently high
level of clinical results.
Due to my concern regarding this clinical deficit, in 1991 I enlisted the aid
of my long-time apprentice and co-author Stephen Rush to publish my first
book, Twelve and Twelve in Acupuncture. This book utilizes some of Master
Tong's points to give practitioners an easily accessible source of reference
material that would instantly upgrade their clinical effectiveness in specific
treatment scenarios. I have found that Master Tong's points and their effects
are very compatible with my own explanation of acupuncture channel
theory which, in turn, relates to my study of the I Ching as a mathematical
system of philosophy.
While living and learning acupuncture (first from my family and later in
apprenticeship to several other masters) in Taiwan, Master Tong was
renowned as one of the greatest acupuncturists in the country. In Taiwan,
the number of impressive-looking letters following a practitioner's name
was not nearly as compelling a form of advertisement as the number of
patients found waiting at his clinic for treatment. In Master Tong's case, the
line of patients was often said

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Page iv
to stretch far out into the street. This in spite of the fact that he could treat
patients very quickly, often seeing upwards of 100 per day!
With this kind of distal point treatment style, it is possible to use only a few
needles, yet obtain good results in a very short time. In my experience,
patients usually report an improvement in their symptoms of pain or
numbness and an increase in mobility very soon after I insert needles into
these points. Relief often occurs within seconds of needling if the distal
points are selected appropriately. The points in this book are very powerful
if used properly.
Miriam Lee has been a great help to the profession of acupuncture in
several ways. By standing up to the legal challenge from the state of
California and fighting for her right to practice, she helped our profession to
get started in this state. Another help to the profession was through her
willingness to share with many student and apprentice acupuncturists what
she had learned over the years, at a time when "keeping secrets" was far
more the norm. One of my own current apprentices studied with Miriam
Lee for a while, and reports that Miriam's openness and willingness to
answer questions was a godsend to her in her own training.
I cannot help but feel that by publishing this second edition of Master
Tong's points as well as her other book, Insights of a Senior Acupuncturist,
that she and Blue Poppy are doing the profession a big favor. Whenever I
lecture on my Balance method and discuss Master Tong's work, I always
mention Miriam's book as a source of additional information. It is good to
hear that this has helped generate sufficient interest to enable publication of
this second edition.
For the sake of our profession, it is necessary to continue with the political
struggle to improve public access to acupuncture. But I feel it is even more
important to make ourselves the most clinically effective practitioners that
we can be. After all, what good is the right to all the insurance coverage in
the world if an acupuncturist cannot quickly and effectively treat most
patients' pain? Miriam Lee's years of experience and Master Tong's method
will prove invaluable towards this end.
AUGUST 1998

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Page ix
arrangement in Dr. Tong's original book. Under each major point or group
of points, we have added a translation of the point's name in English as
suggested by Dr. Lee.
For those parts of this book that are a direct translation from Dr. Tong's
original, we have attempted to use the terminology used in Wiseman and
Boss' Glossary of Chinese Medical Terms and Acupuncture Points.
However, we have had to make a number of concessions due to Dr. Tong's
vocabulary which is somewhat different from the standard contemporary
TCM vocabulary used in Chinese medical books from the People's
Republic of China.
In saying that this is a partial translation, we specifically mean that we have
deleted all the descriptions of underlying anatomy given in the original text.
Dr. Lee and Mr. Paldan abandoned translating these halfway through the
manuscript due to their technical difficulty. Because the surface anatomy
descriptions of these points' locations are adequate for finding them, we
have deleted this section entirely rather than abandoning them halfway. We
hope that the improved anatomical drawings will suffice. In the original,
there were only a few, rather crude anatomical drawings showing all the
points grouped together.
We have also consolidated two separate sections both dealing with the
location of each point. One section is entitled in Chinese bu wei or regional
location. The second section, appearing after each point's indications, is
entitled qu xue, seeking or finding the point. Since this material is
essentially redundant, we have chosen to present an amalgamation of both
sections under the heading, "locating the point".
We have chosen to retain, however, the descriptions of the reaction areas
associated with these points given in the original at the end of each section
on underlying anatomy. Reaction area is Dr. Lee and Decker Paldan's
translation of shen jing. Shen jing is normally translated as nerve. But since
there is no such thing as the lung or stomach nerve or six bowels nerve,
reaction area seems appropriate. Although Dr. Lee could not shed any
further light on these reaction areas, we have found them interesting and
thought-provoking and so have left them. It may be that these reaction areas
take the place in this system

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