Acupuncture is an important component of Chinese traditional medicine. It has a history of several thousand years. According to the meridian vessels and acupuncture points marked in the diagram, doctors operate acupuncture on patients. Only in this way can treatment effect be achiedved.
In 1995, in the Shuangbaoshan No. 2 Tomb of Han Dynasty in Mianyang, Sichuan, a batch of wooden lacquered figurines were unearthed, including kneeling figurines, driving salve figurines and standing figurines. When the workers of Mianyang Museum were carefully checking up these lacquered figures, they found a wooden figurine lacquered with black paint all over its body while there were red paint lines on the black paint. After careful research, experts considered that it was a Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels of Western Han Dynasty. When it was unearthed, it was wrapped by red textile.
This Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels of Western Han Dynasty has been preserved in a pot full of water by workers. With Meridian Vessels is lacquered with black paint on its entire body and is naked. It is in a standing posture with a height of 28 cm. Its legs are incomplete. The figurine's two arms are sagging vertically on two sides of its body, while the left arm is already incomplete. The figurine is bareheaded with clear eyebrows and eyes. It is muscular. What catches one's eyes is that the lines of meridians are represented on its body surface. There are eight lines in the front and five on the back. Some of the lines are from the top of the head to the heel. Some are from the two sides of the head to fingers, and some are from the back to the buttock. Forming a densely covered meridian network. This Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels was mainly used for education and research of ancient acupuncture.
The acupunture therapy of traditional Chinese medicine is the collective name of acupincture and moxibustion. Acupuncture is to inert the specially-made needles into the body of patients according to acupuncture points with technique of twist and raise and so on to cure diseases. While moxibustion is to smoke and cauterize skin with burning moxa stick and cure diseases by thermal stimulus.
In the remote ancient times, people were often stabbed by stones or plants with stings at certain parts. However, the pain in originally aching part were relieved unexpectedly. So the ancient people began to use sharp stones consciously to stab at aching part of the body to relieve pain. Later people invented stone needles. The famous ancient Chinese doctor Bian Que often used stone needles to cure diseases. According to history records, Guo was a vassal state along the Yellow River basin during the Spring and Autumn and Warring Sates Period. One year, the prince of Guo was seriously sick and unconscious. People had already begun to prepare funeral affairs for the prince. Just at the moment, the famous doctor Bian Que pass by here. After inquired about the prince's condition, he said,"The prince will not die. I can save his life." Then he stabbed at the acupuncture points on the prince's head with sharp stone needles. The prince became conscious soon.
The ancient Chinese medical book "Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine" and the "Moxibustion Canon of Eleven Collateral Vessels on Arms and Legs" and "Moxibustion Canon of Yin and Yang Eleven Collateral Vessels" , all recorded the position of meridian vessels detailedly. They were theoretical basis of the early Chinese acupuncture. The ancients mainly learnt acupuncture by means of books and diagrams. Due to lack of three-dimensional and visualized model as reference, they often failed to find meridian vessels and acupuncture points accurately. For the purpose of education the meridian vessels model emerged.
Experts on historic relics compared the vessels system on the Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels of Western Han Dynasty with ancient books and records. They found that the trend of the meridian vessels on the lacquered figurine was similar with the trend of main meridian vessels and some branch vessels recorded in the "Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine", "Moxibustion Canon of Eleven Collateral Vessels on Arms and Legs" and "Moxibustion Canon of Yin and Yang Eleven Collateral Vessels". Moreover, the governor meridian which was not recorded in the three books was marked on the figurine. Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels was an audio-visual image compared with written records and also easier to understand. Experts held the idea it was not occasional that the lacquered figurine was unearthed from Mianyang district. According to "Book of Later Han Dynasty Biograghy of Guo Yu", along the Fu River in Mianyang district, there was an old man. He went fishing in the river every day. No one knew his name. So people called him "Fu Weng". He diagnosed diseases for people regardless whether they were rich or poor, and he never charged money from them. He was good at curing disease by stone needles. Patients usually could recover soon. Later Fu Weng taught his skills to a person named Cheng Gao. Cheng Gao had a student called Guo Yu. Guo Yu learnt acuputcture therapy earnestly and finally became a famous imperial doctor of Eastern Han Dynasty. Though there was little historical record about Gou Yu's grand-teacher Fu Weng and he had been admired and remembered by local people. According to the period of Gu Weng's students, experts inferred that this old man was probably living in the late Western Han Dynasty or early Eastern Han Dynasty. It was close to the period of the Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels of Western Han Dynasty. The lacquered figurine verified that the Mianyang district was one of the most important cradles of traditional Chinese acupuncture and meridian vessels theory.
Except the Lacquered Figurine with Meridian Vessels, large quantity delicate lacquer wares were unearthed in the Shuangbaoshan No. 2 Tomb of Han Dynasty which reffected the developed manufacturing technique of lacquer wares in southwest district in ancient China.
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