“That a needle stuck into one’s foot should improve the functioning of one’s liver is obviously incredible. The only trouble is that, as a matter of empirical fact, it does happen.”

So wrote novelist Aldous Huxley in his foreword to Dr. Felix Mann’s book: Acupuncture: The Ancient Chinese Art of Healing. Mann describes how a skilled acupuncturist can, by inserting needles into the body at various points and depths, cure, improve or arrest a wide range of affliction, that include: migraine headache, ulcers, arthritis, high blood pressure, conjunctivitis, hay fever, acne, sciatica, hepatitis, asthma, hemorrhoids, angina pectoris, lumbago, weak eyesight, tonsillitis, anemia, insomnia. No surgery or drugs, mind you – just needles and the pricks are not painful.

Legend has it that the system originated in the chance discovery that arrows shot into one part of soldiers’ bodies could cure illnesses in other parts. Acupuncture was known, according to tradition, as early as 2600 BC., during the reign of Chinese Emperor Huang Ti.

Besides using acupuncture for treatment, the Chinese also use it as a means of anesthesia. Classically, needles were placed in the skin superficially and left for 10 to 30 minutes. When used as an anesthetic, needles are placed deeper, up to two inches. In addition, they are constantly manipulated in a rapid half inch, up-and-down motion (about 120 times a minutes) while being twirled between thumb and fingers.

According to a later innovation, a patient receives through implanted needles a 0.5 milli ampere current for 20 minutes, which completely anesthetizes the area to be incised.

The electronic theory of acupuncture offered by western physicians note that people in good health have an electrical potential difference of 30 to 40 milli volts between the head and the fingertips, the head being the positive pole and the fingertips the negative pole. If one’s health is less than good, this difference in potential decreases or can even get inverted. This electrical balance or imbalance is one of the main aspects of what the Chinese mean by “the circulation of energy.”

Today, this ancient form of therapy is practiced in most parts of the globe as an alternative healing method.