Meridian is the backbone of human qi and blood circulation. Meridians rise and fall, running through the human body and connecting the inside and outside of the human body. Collaterals are tiny branches of meridians that crisscross the whole body, connecting all parts of the human body into a unified whole to maintain the coordination and balance of human life activities. Will lead to the occurrence of diseases. There are 56 meridians in the whole body, with large collaterals 15, and too many small collaterals to count. Meridian theory is an important part of the basic theory of traditional Chinese medicine, especially in acupuncture. It is not as visible and tangible as blood vessels, nerves and lymphatic vessels in the human body. How did the ancients discover the meridians and draw their lines? Ancient doctors first knew meridians from blood vessels. The channels of blood flow are called "pulse", "pulse" and "pulse meridian". These channels are numerous, vertical, horizontal, deep and shallow. In order to distinguish them, they are named meridians or collaterals respectively. After long-term medical practice, people found that meridians not only run blood, but also run what Chinese medicine says. The movement of blood is driven by qi, and it is further recognized that meridians are the channels for qi and blood to run. The development of acupuncture and moxibustion is directly related to the discovery of meridians. When acupuncture reaches a certain part of the human body and a certain depth, the patient will feel a feeling of acid, numbness, swelling and heaviness under the needle, or feel cold, fever or crawling like a bug. These feelings usually spread along specific directions and parts. This phenomenon attracted the attention of ancient doctors. After repeated acupuncture, the phenomenon of sensory transmission will recur. The ancients recorded the route taken by this acupuncture feeling, which is what we call meridians. It has also been found that some acupoints have the same or similar functions during acupuncture. Therefore, the ancients summarized and linked acupuncture points with similar functions and connected these acupuncture points into a line. This line is the meridian. Ancient doctors recorded all the meridian phenomena they found, drew them on maps and passed them down from generation to generation. This is the meridian chart we see. At present, the earliest record of human meridians is 1973, a medical work silk book unearthed from the No.3 Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province, including moxibustion at acupoints of foot eleven and yin and yang eleven. In order to explore the mystery of human meridians and decipher the eternal mystery of acupuncture meridians, Chinese researchers have chosen "the phenomenon of feeling passing along meridians" as a breakthrough, and finally achieved great results. One day in the early 1970s, a patient came to see a doctor in 309 Hospital of China People's Liberation Army. When the doctor stimulated the Shangyang point of Yangming's large intestine meridian with electric current, something strange happened: the patient suddenly felt as if something was walking on the body surface. This is an indescribable feeling of numbness, heat, acid and swelling mixed together. It is a line like running water, starting from the Shang Yang point of the index finger, along the index finger, passing through the upper edge of the forearm, then upward, from the outside of the upper arm to the shoulder, and finally upward to the top of the mouth and lips. This is a complete circular line of the whole hand Yangming large intestine meridian. This phenomenon is not surprising to Chinese medicine practitioners, especially acupuncturists. For doctors trained by modern western medicine education, it is incredible, because no western medicine book has drawn such a line on the human body. Since then, the twelve meridians and the eight strange meridians have been observed in seven people who have obvious feelings. After the report, it aroused great interest of scholars at home and abroad. After investigating more than 200 thousand people, the results are consistent with those observed by 309 hospital cooperation group. Through a lot of practice, scientists have found that meridian phenomenon is a common phenomenon shared by human beings, not who has it and who doesn't. What is the essence of meridians? The general view is that meridians are closely related to nerves. However, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by neuroscience. Professor Meng Zhaowei, a Chinese scholar, thinks that meridians are the "third balance system". He believes that the human body has four balance systems: the first and second balance systems are trunk nerves and autonomic nerves, and the endocrine system is the fourth balance system. The conduction speed of meridians is between one, two and four, so it is called the third balance system. This is still a mystery. I believe that through people's efforts, the mystery of meridians will eventually be revealed.
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