Acupuncture and moxibustion have occupied an important position in Traditional Chinese Medicine because of its simple and convenient treatment with its remarkable curative effects and little side effects. In order to increase its curative effects and prevent medical accidents, the scholars at home and abroad are doing further researches in the fields of configuration and function of acupoints and meridians from many aspects and have already made great progress.
In respect of application, correct location of acupoints, suitable direction and inserting depth of needles and manipulating methods of needles are all related to curative effects of acupuncture treatment directly. As the acupoints and meridians are basis of curative effects of acupuncture treatment, the Chinese anatomists did a lot of researches in this field mostly by the way of topographic anatomy which might affect accuracy of the data, owing to the normal inner structure of acupoints and meridians could be changed when they were observed from surface to depth after the process of incision and moving back and forth. Recently, human cross-sectional anatomy has been developed quickly as the computer tomography (CT) and other new techniques are used widely in clinic. Adopting advanced techniques of the cross-sectional anatomy method the interrelationships of the inner structure of the various parts of human body is acupoints can be observed completely without any moving back and forth of anatomical samples, so it has obvious superiority over topographic anatomy method. This atlas is drawn by means of the cross-sectional anatomy method with which we can observe and study the inner structures of human body's acupoints as well as meridians.
The process of drafting atlas is as follows: choosing a suitable man's cadaver and marking the meridians and acupoints by the measurements on bones of the body according to teaching material issued by State Education Committee, then at the place of each local system where there are no acupoints incising the body into 8 parts (head, neck and trunk, etc.) 9 putting them at -20'C for one week, making a consecutive cross-section anatomical samples of meridians and acupoints, fixing the samples with the wax to prevent them from shift and having them photographed to file for reference, at last, drawing 232 cross-sectional anatomical figures according to the original samples. These figures consist of more than 360 acupoints with marked 14 meridians, its anatomical structures and locations of inserted needles.
According to the distribution of meridians and acupoints of 3 hand(foot) Yang(Yin), the arrangement of the atlas is in the order of head and neck, trunk, upper extremities and lower extremities, all being from left to right. There is a systematic picture beside each cross-section figure. The black horizontal line in the pictures shows the location of the cross-section.
In order to meet the development of acupuncture, it contains not only cross-sectional anatomy of acupoints but also of meridians. The atlas is a frontier production of combination of human body anatomy and human body meridians and acupoints. So it is of considerable practical value in teaching and study of acupuncture and manipulation, both clinically and theoretically. It can also serve as a good reference for medical practice and research in departments of western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, anatomy and other clinical and fundamental fields.
All the data of the atlas are illustrated in accord with the books such as Literature of location of meridians and acupoints edited by Chinese State Pharmaceutical and Herbs Administration, published by Chinese State Technical Supervision Bureau, so they are correct and accord with state standards issued. In order to suit international standard, names of the meridians and acupoints are all in forms of abbreviations. For example, Large Intesting Meridian of hand Yangming is abbreviated as "LI" and the first point of the meridian, Shangyang as "Ll 1", the others are analogized.
The anatomical terms of the atlas is in accord with the Chinese Scientific Terms of Anatomy edited by China National Committee for Natural Scientific Terms, published by Science Press in 1991 and the Nomina Anatomica Sinica edited by the Chinese Anatomy Association, published by Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers in 1982.
The editors of the atlas aim to make a new attempt to combine western medicine with Traditional Chinese Medicine and make the basic theory research to serve medical clinic. Because of our limited academic level, it is possible that some mistakes or oversights appear in this book. The authors welcome suggestions and comments from the interested readers of this book.
This work was supported greatly by Dr. Liu Jialing and Prof. Zheng Baoshan of Anhui College of TCM. Dr. Liu Weizhou, one of the contributors made a lot of designing, correcting and revising works.
