The Chairman: Jiao Shunfa

Master Craftsmanship in the Way of the Needle: Jiao Shunfa, Founder and Pioneer of Scalp Acupuncture

In mere seconds, a hemiplegic patient can move limbs that were once rigid; a person confined to a wheelchair can stand up and walk. The remarkable effects that "scalp acupuncture"--a needling technique distinct from ordinary acupuncture--produces in patients are astonishing to behold. Some call it "the finest needle under heaven," the "divine needle," or the "king of needles." Prof. Jiao Shunfa understands that behind the astonishment lies the ingenious application of the essence of traditional Chinese medicine--above all, the proper governance of the head, the body's master switchboard.

Jiao Shunfa, founder and pioneer of scalp acupuncture, is president and professor of the Beijing WFAS Jiao-Style Acupuncture Research Institute. He serves as senior advisor to the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies, standing director of the China Association of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, and president of the Shenqi Needle-Dao Research Institute, among other posts.

"The Efficacy of Scalp Acupuncture Won Me Over"

In 1956, Jiao Shunfa entered a county hospital's medical training class, beginning his path in medicine. In 1966, working at a county hospital where neurosurgery was thriving and patients thronged his clinic, he nonetheless became a target of political turmoil and was sent to the countryside for "re-education through labor."

By day he labored; by night he secretly studied the classics--the Huangdi Neijing, the Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, the Nanjing, and the Zhenjiu Dacheng. A research question took shape: how might the mu-front points of acupuncture be applied to neurological diseases? Each of the twelve organs has a mu point, the key point for treating disorders of its corresponding organ. Prof. Jiao demonstrated that each mu point lies in the surface region closest to its organ: the stomach's mu point Zhongwan sits nearest the stomach; the large intestine's point Tianshu corresponds to the colon's position; and so for the pericardium, spleen, and kidney. If that is so, he reasoned, should lesions of the brain not likewise be treated near the scalp? Each cortical region governs particular functions--might there exist, between the scalp and the cerebral cortex, a corresponding connection?

The ancients left no such experience, and modern medicine offered no answer. Only practice could blaze the trail. Time and again Jiao stood before a mirror, inserting fine needles into his own scalp to gauge the needling sensation, the safe depth, and the risks, while treating the ailments of an elderly patient, Aunt Zhang. At last the miracle came: he cured her long-standing illness.

Jiao, once skeptical of needling cures, was won over by the evidence of his own practice: needling can cure disease, and with extraordinary efficacy.

Practice, summarize, refine; practice again, summarize again, refine again. Word of Jiao Shunfa's scalp-acupuncture treatment of more than twenty conditions--cerebral thrombosis, cerebral hemorrhage, craniocerebral injury--spread among patients almost as legend. In 1971 the provincial health department and the national Ministry of Health sent investigators, who affirmed his scalp acupuncture.

In 1971, the "scalp acupuncture" that condensed Jiao's painstaking research was formally announced, causing a sensation in Chinese medical circles. Because of its unique efficacy for brain-origin diseases, it spread rapidly at home and abroad. In 1982 the World Health Organization recognized scalp acupuncture as a Chinese invention and called for its worldwide application in medicine. That single needle threaded its way through to the world's medical organizations.

The Needle Meets Disease, and the Marvel Appears

Science is never born overnight, yet Jiao Shunfa has walked every step with steadiness and composure.

Jiao's scalp acupuncture is a method of treating disease by needling specific stimulation zones on the head. Built upon the unique theory and clinical experience of ancient Chinese needling for brain diseases, and combined with modern medical knowledge of the functional localization of the cerebral cortex, it was refined through repeated research and clinical verification. It creatively designates sixteen stimulation zones on the head: the motor zone, sensory zone, chorea-tremor control zone, vasomotor zone, vertigo-auditory zone, speech zones two and three, praxis zone, foot-motor-sensory zone, visual zone, balance zone, stomach zone, hepatic-gallbladder zone, thoracic zone, genital zone, and intestinal zone. Needling these zones yields marked results for symptoms and signs arising from brain-origin diseases. Jiao also successfully applied scalp acupuncture to surgical anesthesia, and systematized the "three-fast needling technique": fast insertion, fast rotation, fast withdrawal.

After founding scalp acupuncture, Jiao turned to exploring the principles of needling, and thence to the study of the meridian doctrine at the core of Chinese medical theory. He holds that what plays the principal role in acupuncture treatment is the central and peripheral nervous system. Acupoints are the optimal entry points for needling peripheral nerves; the experience of treating systemic diseases by needling points depends chiefly on selecting points within, or adjacent to, the segmental domains innervated by the spinal nerves.

In fact, as early as 2,500 years ago, Chinese physicians' understanding and description of the human nervous system already far exceeded the band-like referred sensation traveling along the longitudinal axis of the body; the gross structure of the nervous system was already broadly clear. Statements such as "the brain is the sea of marrow" and the description of the Governor Vessel "ascending along the interior of the back, the sea of the meridians" indicate that the spinal cord is the marrow, the sea, and the governor of the meridians. The spinal cord is the core of the body's meridians; what emerge from it are of course the meridians of the trunk and limbs, and by no means merely the band-like referred sensations that travel along the body's axis and converge on the spinal cord.

Modern medical knowledge confirms that what connects to the spinal cord are the peripheral nerves--proof that what the ancients described as meridians is precisely the human nervous system.

Moreover, in the clinical practice of acupuncture, the requirement is explicitly to needle the nerves of the trunk and limbs, not to elicit the band-like referred sensation. "If no qi arrives upon needling, needle regardless of count; when qi arrives, withdraw--do not needle again." "The essential of needling: with arrival of qi comes efficacy." These passages plainly demand needling of the nerves, not the eliciting of referred sensations--which appear in only about five percent of people, whereas the arrival of qi is demanded of every needle. Modern knowledge shows that only when a needle strikes a larger nerve branch does the patient feel soreness, numbness, distension, or twitching, and the practitioner's hand feel sinking, rough, or tight; without striking a nerve branch, there is no marked arrival of qi.

On the flyleaf of his book Principles of Acupuncture and Clinical Practice, Jiao Shunfa wrote: "In medicine there is a miracle. That miracle is the Chinese cure by needling--so early in origin, so scientific in theory, so exquisite in method, so unique in efficacy, so rich in experience, so enduring in practice." These words express the greatest fruit of his research and his deepest conviction. It was this conviction that sustained him through twenty-five years of systematic compilation, culminating in the 500,000-character work Needling to Cure Disease.

The Divine Needle of the East, Leading the Way

At Prof. Jiao's research institute, a reporter watched a video of Jiao treating an American woman. Eighty years old, her heart having undergone four operations, she had been hemiplegic on the left side for eight years after a cerebral hemorrhage. Seated in a wheelchair, she could not raise her left arm above her head. As Jiao conversed with her, he began the scalp needling. The needles were retained for ten minutes. Then she was invited to try raising her arm--and up it went, over her head; the woman applauded in delight. Soon her ankle moved too. The hemiplegia that had troubled her for eight years had taken a decisive turn.

A patient surnamed Lin, wheeled into the acupuncture room for generalized bone pain, received two fine needles in his head from Prof. Jiao. Five seconds later, the pain was gone and he stood up and walked on his own, to the applause and cheers of the medical staff and fellow patients present.

Ms. Liu, 57, had suffered right-sided hemiplegia for a year and a half. After a stroke in February 1977, despite Chinese and Western treatment, she remained incompletely recovered when she came to Prof. Jiao in September 1978: her speech slightly slurred, right nasolabial fold shallow, right hand weak (grip 8 kg against 20 kg on the left), fingers unable to spread, unable to walk without a cane in a hemiplegic gait. After the first needling her right hand extended normally; after the second, her fingers could spread and she walked 100 meters unaided; after the sixth, she could rise from a low stool by herself; after the eighth, the motions of her right hand were strong and nimble, her grip had risen to 13 kg, and her handwriting had improved.

Mr. Ji, 68, had borne right-sided lung cancer for two years. For half a month he had suffered severe pain in the right shoulder, arm, and neck--in sitting, sleeping, lifting the arm, or turning the head--unrelieved by Chinese or Western medicine. His chest and back were covered with plasters when he came to Prof. Jiao, who diagnosed pain secondary to advanced right lung cancer. One minute after needling, the pain in his shoulder, arm, and neck had vanished; after several further treatments, the pain on lifting the arm and turning the head was gone. He wrote Prof. Jiao a heartfelt letter of thanks.