Within this context, much research has attempted to explain the mechanism of acupuncture in terms of what is already known scientifically, and when it fails to do so, it is acupuncture's efficacy which is called into question rather than the limitations of existing scientific practice. Refreshingly, most of the reviews published in Clinical Acupuncture are a departure from this trend. Clinical Acupuncture is a collection of twelve essays on the latest thinking from around the world across a wide range of research topics. Subjects range from acupuncture analgesia, the neurophysiology of auricular acupuncture and the morphology of meridians through to current research findings, methodologies, clinical trial design and future directions for research.
All papers contain extensive references to published literature.
The first three chapters look at mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia. Ever since Nixon's visit to China in 1972, when stories of operations being performed on conscious patients first hit the West, medical orthodoxy has been both fascinated and perplexed by the mechanisms of pain control which acupuncture reveals. For the uninitiated the focus of research on this narrow area has meant that acupuncture has become largely defined as, and synonymous with, a form of pain relief. Investigators have tended to explore mechanisms by which analgesic neuropeptides are produced after stimulation of the afferent nerves in muscle tissue. Clearly this kind of research is very useful for biochemists in order to gain an understanding of the nature of pain and analgesia.