Category: Traditional Chinese Medicine

There’s an app for that ?!?

There is no shortage of technology in my household: computers, smart phones and tablets of one kind or another. The nice thing about being a blogger and an app developer is I can justify it all. Well, mostly. The “It’s probably tax deductible” gambit can only be used so many times. It is remarkable how much of my life is filtered through...

/ June 1, 2012

California Forbids Chinese Bloodletting

In November 2010, the California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) finally decided to act responsibly and forbid the prevalent practice of Chinese bloodletting by licensed acupuncturists. The practice became a concern for the DCA when allegations of unsanitary bloodletting at a California (CA) acupuncture school surfaced. The incident allegedly occurred during a “doctoral” course for licensed practitioners. The instructor was reportedly demonstrating...

/ December 16, 2010

Acupuncture and Modern Bloodletting

Last year Ben Kavoussi published an interesting article on SBM called “Astrology with Needles” in which he purported a historical connection between acupuncture and bloodletting. I had previously thought that bloodletting was a uniquely Western cultural invention – part of Galenic medicine involving the balancing of the four humors, one of which being blood. (In the West bloodletting faded away with the...

/ July 7, 2010