The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine

306 Pages·2014·2.37 MB·English

by  Daniel Keown

‘The eloquent and poetic language of the classics of Chinese
medicine has always seemed incommensurable with modern
Western scientific medicine. No longer. Dr Keown provides clear
and compelling evidence that both systems are describing the same
processes in the human body. Some kind of synthesis is now in
prospect, and the implications are enormous.’

– John Hamwee, acupuncturist and author
of Acupuncture for New Practitioners

‘It is surprising how little research has been done over the years
to examine the relationship of acupuncture to Western medicine.
Now at last we have Dr Keown’s thoughtful and stimulating book
to help fill this gap. Dr Keown talks from personal experience
of working on both sides of this medical divide. His book is an
invaluable contribution to helping practitioners of both disciplines
understand how far they speak a common medical language,
though they may express themselves in somewhat different terms.’

– Nora Franglen, Founder of the School of Five
Element Acupuncture (SOFEA) and author of The
Handbook of Five Element Practice, Keepers of
the Soul, Patterns of Practice and The Simple
Guide to Five Element Acupuncture

‘Unusually for a doctor, Daniel Keown has a deep knowledge of
the theories and practice of acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
His obvious love and profound understanding of anatomy and
physiology means that he is almost uniquely qualified to explain
how acupuncture “works” according to the paradigm of modern
science. This is an important book and essential reading for anyone
interested in bridging the gap in understanding between Chinese
medicine and conventional medical science.’

– Peter Mole, Dean of the College of Integrated
Chinese Medicine, Reading, UK and author of
Acupuncture for Body, Mind and Spirit

‘I started reading this book and thought “wow!” – I couldn’t put
it down! Daniel Keown is both a Western medical doctor and an
Acupuncturist. Using his engaging writing style he makes sense of
how the latest scientific understanding of systems theory unites
with the holism of our oldest medical tradition. Everyone from the
general public to Western and Eastern medical practitioners – in
fact, anyone who is curious about the remarkable way the human
body functions and develops – should read this book.’

– Angela Hicks, Joint Principal of the College of
Integrated Chinese Medicine, Reading, UK, and
author of The Principles of Chinese Medicine

How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the
Mysteries of Western Medicine

DR DANIEL KEOWN M.B. CH.B., LIC. AC.

LONDON AND PHILADELPHIA

Publisher’s note
This book does not attempt to map Chinese medicine onto Western medicine, but explores
how the body is better understood through a synthesis of both paradigms.

First published in 2014
by Singing Dragon
an imprint of Jessica Kingsley Publishers
73 Collier Street
London N1 9BE, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA

www.singingdragon.com

Copyright © Daniel Keown 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Keown, Daniel.
The spark in the machine : how the science of Acupuncture
explains the mysteries of western medicine
/ Dr. Daniel Keown, M.B. Ch, B. Lic. Ac.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-84819-196-9 (alk. paper)
1. Acupuncture. 2. Integrative medicine. 3. Medicine, Chinese. I. Title.
RM184.K38 2014
615.8’92--dc23
2013037291

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84819 196 9
eISBN 978 0 85701 154 1

Printed and bound in Great Britain

To Denis, my father, ace surgeon and
man of God, who taught me about fascia
with a Sainsbury’s bag; and Margaret,
my mother, who taught me that Art
comes from the Heart…

vI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I will always owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the irrepressible
Alexandra Hain-Cole, without whose patient guidance into the
World of Grammar this book may never have been borne.
There are too many people to thank, but special thanks to
the (probably drug-addled) burglar who returned my drawings;
Dr Ironside for bullying me into writing this book; Ranald
MacDonald for showing me the art of Chinese medicine and
Dr Mike Roberts for the art of Western; Manchester Medical
School and the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine for their
wisdom and patience; James Cole for his words and inventing a
new profession – lexiconsultant; and Jessica Kingsley, victoria and
Octavia for their clarity of vision.
Lastly, to my wife, the beautiful Josephine, who has not only
borne me a wonderfully naughty little boy Harrison, but also my
hopes and crazy dreams. This book is your book too, my love.

vII

PREFACE

It was whilst studying in China with probably one of the most
respected Acupuncturists in the world – Dr Wang Ju-Yi – that
the embryo of this book was first conceived. Dr Ju-Yi chose his
words with the studied patience of a man who has spent most of
his 70 years thinking deeply about the mysteries of Acupuncture.*
The very beautiful and wonderfully modest assistant Mei then
translated his words before I could start to understand anything.
In turn I would then nod, sometimes in understanding, but often,
probably, vaguely idiotically.
Dr Ju-Yi understood it was the spaces in the body where
Acupuncture acted, and when he spoke of its relationships I found
myself realising that his deep understanding of Acupuncture shared
much with embryological science. I was excited by this, for once I
felt I had something interesting to tell him: was he aware of this, the
parallels between embryology and Chinese Acupuncture channels?
Dr Ju-Yi thought about it for a while and then, speaking with
his characteristic slow steady rhythm but with an added glint in his
eye said: ‘No…but you must go and write a book on it.’
This is that book. It is to be read and enjoyed by anyone with
an interest in how our amazing bodies are formed. It is a book
that weaves together the very latest in our modern understanding
of embryology and the very oldest of medical traditions. I hope in
some way it enlightens your knowledge of the body and furthers
your understanding of the most complete medical tradition
in the world.

*
You may have noticed the ‘A’ of ‘Acupuncture’ is capitalised. The convention
when writing about Chinese medicine is that concepts and organs (such as
‘Kidney’) are capitalised to distinguish them from the Western medical physical
counterparts (a difference which mainly disappears when explored deeper, as
explained in Parts II and III).

CONTENTS

Prologue: Why Can’t Humans Regenerate?
1

Part I What God Forgot to Tell Surgeons
5

1
Genesis
6

2
The Single-Cell Universe
7

3
‘A Name but no Form’
9

4 The Triple Helix
16

5
The Spark of Life
20

6
What is Qi?
24

7
Cloning Sheep with Qi
27

8
The Perfect Factory
32

9
Organ Qi
35

10 How Qi Folds the Body
41

11 Tricky Dicky and Little Pricks
44

12 Human Fractals
50

13 The Leonardos and the Perfect Man
59

14 Evolution at Warp Speed
63

15 The Sonic Hedgehog Punch
67

16 What are Acupuncture Points?
72

17 Currents of Qi
78

Part II The Embryology of Chinese
Medicine
87

18 An Introduction…to Yin and Yang
88

19 The Tao
90

20 Angmion: Beauty and Brains
99

21 The Yolk of Our Body
102

22 Blood: The Middle Layer
107

23 Jing: The 10,000
108

24 Embryological Surfers
112

Part III Ming Men and the Six Channels 119
The Three Yin Channels
121

25 ShaoYin (Lesser Yin)
125

26 TaiYin (Greater Yin)
166

27 JueYin (Returning Yin)
206

The Three Yang Channels
237

28 TaiYang (Greater Yang)
238

29 YangMing (Bright Yang)
244

30 ShaoYang (Lesser Yang)
257

Epilogue
263

APPENDIX 1: HOW CANCER MOVES
267

APPENDIX 2: YIN AND YANG
269

APPENDIX 3: ‘REFERRED’ OR ‘RADIATING’ PAIN
272

ENDNOTES
276

INDEX
285

1

PROLOGUE

Why Can’t Humans
Regenerate?

When I was three years old I caught my thumb in a folding chair.
I cannot remember this episode, filled as it must have been with
blood and pain, but my mother does. She packed the amputated tip
of the thumb on ice and rushed me to the Emergency Department,
where a surgeon sewed it back on again. I still have the scar on my
thumb now, running parallel to the base of my nail.
What my mother didn’t know, and what most doctors still
don’t, is that my thumb would almost certainly have grown back
perfectly without any treatment. It would have regenerated in the
same way as some amphibians can grow back their tails or legs.
Bone, nail, nerves, blood vessels, the whole lot. All it needed was a
gentle clean, a non-adherent dressing, and a lollipop to soothe my
frayed, three-year-old nerves.
It turns out humans can regenerate, but only the very tips of
their fingers and only children, who still have strong Qi (we’ll
come to this). In the 1970s a Sheffield paediatrician even published
a paper on this effect in the Journal of Paediatric Surgery.1 Her
results were unequivocal: amputations above the last joint in
children under six left to heal naturally would regrow, the entire
finger, without a scar or deformity!
It is somewhat amazing that this fact is so little known in
the medical community. Having worked in the Emergency
Department for ten years I have only ever met one colleague who
was aware of this fact, despite the implications it has for patient
care. The reason for this to me is clear: it strikes at the core of

THE SPARK IN THE MACHINE
2

what we think we know about medicine. If people can regenerate
fingers then how do they do so, and what else can they regenerate?
Medical schools would have to open up a new department.
The research into regeneration in humans is so slim that I
have only ever seen one book on it, yet it is at the heart of the
healing principle.2 An orthopaedic surgeon in America, R.O.
Becker, spent decades looking into the ability of salamanders to
regenerate. His interest was in the non-union of bone fractures,
literally a crippling problem that can occur for no clear reason. His
findings led to medically approved devices for using electricity to
cure ‘non-unions’, but it was these findings themselves that were
most amazing.
Becker chose salamanders to experiment on because of their
ability to regrow limbs, but he could have used any number of
primitive animals that regenerate. Salamanders never suffer from
non-union of broken bones for, even if they have no limb left to
reunite, they can just grow a new one. Although salamanders are
amphibians, their legs are functionally very similar to ours. They
have bones, joints, nerves, blood vessels, and muscles, tendons and
ligaments. In fact, they have everything we have in our legs, just
smaller and covered in green skin.
A salamander that has had its leg removed will make a stumpy
blood clot at the end and then over the course of the next few
weeks it will grow a shiny new green leg. It’s amphibian magic!
Becker was intrigued by this power. After some research, he
started to measure the electrical currents that would occur at
the site of injury after amputating his salamanders’ legs. He had
already noticed that there was a tiny electrical gradient from the
salamander’s head to fingers (if that is what a salamander has).
He noticed that this current was so small that it was almost
unmeasurable. It was in micro-amperes, but was consistent and
was consistently more negative at the head. What he found was
that after he amputated the limb there was a reversal in the polarity
of the normal electrical current and that this reversal would cause
the limb regeneration.

WHY CAN’T HUMANS REGENERATE?
3

Most students of medicine will not find anything unusual
about animals generating electricity. Nerves are constantly able
to produce this and some animals can even generate large electric
shocks. What was unusual about this electricity was that it was a
DC current. Nerve electricity is AC – it has an up and down, like
the power from the mains. The current Becker was measuring was
constant, like that from a battery.
Now, it would be nice to say at this point that no animals
were harmed in these experiments, but that is clearly not true…
What is incredible, though, is that at the end of the experiments
it appeared that no animals had been harmed! Regeneration is a
truly miraculous event.
What Becker found is that this reversal of electrical current
would cause changes in the salamanders’ blood cells in the region
of injury. They would de-differentiate (differentiation is the process
of stem cells turning into specialised cells such as muscles). In other
words, the red blood cells would wind back the embryological
clock, unlocking their DNA until they were primitive stem cells
again. Then they would start rebuilding the limb from scratch,
differentiating into bone, nerve, muscle, whatever was needed.
Within a few weeks the job was done and the salamander was
back on four legs again. So long as the salamander had enough
food, this could be repeated many times.
Any student of medicine may have spotted a deliberate mistake
in the above: red blood cells don’t have DNA in them; they have no
nucleus. Indeed, this is true, red cells have no nucleus in humans,
but in more primitive animals red cells are nucleated. They have all
the genetic code present: large parts have been turned off to enable
the cell to function as a red blood cell, but it is still all there. What’s
more, with the right messaging it can still create any cell in the
body. It is this process that was used to clone Dolly the sheep and
this, my friends, is one reason why more primitive animals than us
can regenerate limbs: they have stronger blood.
Becker went further. He messed around with electricity in
salamanders and other animals and made them grow extra limbs
and even heads. Using tiny electrodes he re-reversed the polarity