Standard Acupuncture Nomenclature

International academic exchange on acupuncture has increased with its widespread development and use in the world. There are now many acupuncture specialists, several international and national meetings have been held, and a multitude of publications have appeared.

Translations of the original Han (Chinese) texts and characters have proliferated. Numerous problems due to differences of spelling and pronunciation have arisen. Today, the same acupuncture points may have a wide variety of names because of these differences. Furthermore, to help those who do not read Han characters, a variety of alphanumeric codes have been given to meridian and acupuncture points. The need for standardization has become increasingly pressing.

In December 1982, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific convened a working group meeting in Manila on the standardization of acupuncture. This was followed by a series of meetings between 1985 and 1989 which ratified the decisions of the working group and made it possible to present the material as it appears in this revised edition.

In this second edition, each of the 361 entries has three parts: (1) the standardized name of the classical point, (2) a brief explanation of the name of the point, and (3) a multilingual comparative list of the names of the point.

It is hoped that this publication on standard acupuncture nomenclature will contribute to further information exchange on acupuncture throughout the world.