Acupuncture has a long and winding history, and part of that story runs right through the Midlands. Here's a short tour, from an ancient Chinese classic to 17th-century Europe, an American journalist's appendix, and a man born in Coventry who shaped the style I practise today.
The Huangdi Neijing
The foundational text of Chinese medicine is the Huangdi Neijing, usually translated as the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic. It was composed around the 3rd century BCE and is written as a conversation between the legendary Yellow Emperor and a wise teacher, even though the emperor's supposed reign falls many centuries before the text was actually written.
Many ideas that still sit at the centre of Chinese medicine are already there. Yin and yang appear as complementary forces that need to stay in balance, the organs are linked to the Five Elements, and prevention is given strong emphasis. For over 2,000 years the Neijing has been the highest Chinese authority on medical matters.
How acupuncture reached Europe
For many centuries acupuncture developed in East Asia, largely unknown in Europe. That began to change in the 1600s, when knowledge arrived by two main routes. One was treatises by Jesuit missionaries working in China, and the other was reports from travelling doctors in Japan.
The most important of those doctors was Willem ten Rhijne (1647 to 1700), a Dutch physician employed by the Dutch East India Company. In the 1670s he was posted to Dejima, the Dutch trading post in Japan, and learned from Japanese physicians there. His Latin treatise, published in London in 1683, is credited with coining the term "acupuncture" and giving one of the first detailed Western accounts of the practice, with diagrams. On its way the knowledge passed from Chinese to Japanese to Dutch to Latin, which gives you some idea of how much could be lost in translation.
1971: a journalist's appendix
Acupuncture remained a curiosity in the West until the 20th century. One turning point came in 1971. James Reston, a New York Times journalist, was in China ahead of President Nixon's historic visit when he needed his appendix removed. The operation at Peking Union Medical College Hospital used conventional anaesthesia, and afterwards a doctor used acupuncture needles and moxibustion for his post-operative discomfort.
Reston wrote about it on the front page of the paper on 26 July 1971, in an article titled "Now, About My Operation in Peking", and reported noticeable relaxation of the pressure and distension within an hour. A 2014 article in the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medical Sciences traces a wave of American interest in acupuncture to his account, followed by Nixon's visit to Beijing in February 1972.
J.R. Worsley: Coventry and Leamington
Meanwhile, acupuncture was already taking root in England. Jack Reginald Worsley was born in Coventry on 14 September 1923. After wartime service he studied physiotherapy and osteopathy, and later acupuncture, travelling in Asia during the 1950s and 1960s to learn from teachers there.
Worsley developed and taught what became known as Five Element acupuncture, sometimes called Worsley-style acupuncture. His teaching base was in Warwickshire: he lived in Kenilworth, and from the mid-1970s he taught classes of students at premises in Leamington Spa. His approach puts the whole person at the centre, looking closely at colour, sound, odour and emotion to find which Element most needs support. He died in 2003, and his students went on to open training colleges in other parts of the world.
So when I practise Five Element acupuncture in Coventry today, I'm working in a tradition whose modern form has local roots, in the city where Worsley was born.
Where things stand now
Acupuncture is now widely available in the UK. NICE guidance says it can be considered for chronic primary pain and for preventing chronic tension-type headache and, where certain preventive medicines haven't worked or aren't suitable, migraine. Research into other uses is ongoing and often mixed, and I'm always happy to talk openly about what is and isn't known.
To find out more about Worsley's life and his Coventry connection, read born in Coventry: the J.R. Worsley story.