‘The Energetics and Treatment of Body Areas – The Vertex’ by Giovanni Maciocia, is now available to purchase as an e-book, readily available to download.
The curriculum of most schools of Chinese medicine is usually broken down into the following topics concerning the theory of Chinese medicine:
• Physiology of the Internal Organs
• Aetiology
• Diagnosis
• Patterns of disharmony of the Internal Organs
In addition to the above, the acupuncture curriculum is based on the study of the channels and points. Within each of these topics, various parts of the body are discussed. For example, when studying diagnosis we break the subject down into interrogation, observation, palpation and auscultation. Within each of these broad areas, students study the diagnostic elements of specific areas.
Fig. 1. Categories of study of interrogation and observation
For example, within interrogation, there are sections on the face, chest, abdomen, limbs, etc. The same is done within observation.
As for channels and points study, when students study the channels, they will typically study the course of the channel as a whole rather than a section of a channel in a particular area of the body; the same is done for the acupuncture points, i.e. they usually study the points for each channel and not the points specific to a certain area.
Figure 1 illustrates this concept. As can be seen in this Figure, we study the face, chest, abdomen both within the interrogation and the observation; and the same will apply to palpation. The result is that areas become disjointed and there is nothing to connect elements of interrogation, observation and palpation relevant to a specific area; moreover, nothing to connect elements of channels and points relevant to specific areas.
For example, we study the Kidney and Ren Mai points separately and we explore the common therapeutic actions of the Kidney points and those of the Ren Mai points separately. We do not explore what points from different channels sharing a particular area might have in common, e.g. KI-25 Shencang and Ren-17 Shanzhong.
The purpose of this book is to turn this attitude on its head and to place areas first so that everything else is subordinate to that. This book places areas first and each diagnostic and therapeutic element relevant to that area is discussed together.
Fig. 2. Layout of present book
Figure 2 illustrates this principle.
The areas discussed are:
• Vertex
• Face
• Occiput
• Throat
• Chest
• Abdomen
For each area Giovanni discusses the following aspects:
1. Anatomy (physical and energetic)
2. Channels
3. Symptoms and signs
4. Patterns
5. Diseases
6. Points
7. Herbs
‘The Energetics and Treatment of Body Areas – The Vertex’, by Giovanni Maciocia is available here.