Way to live healthy to 100 - 312 Meridian Exercise
Eighty-four-year-old Zhu Zongxiang has the vigor and vitality of man half his age. In a few old and shabby rooms situated near a group of ancient buildings in Beijing, the old doctor has stubbornly persisted in learning more about the meridians of acupuncture for more than 30 years. He often said he was a traitor to Western medicine.
Since the 1950s, he had been teaching physiology, a basic medical subject, in Peking Union Medical College Hospital. However, a decision in 1973 changed his life.
That year, he was inspired by Premier Zhou Enlai's appeal to Chinese medical experts to make clear the theory of acupuncture. Zhou's call for action followed US President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972.
Zhu Zongxiang (right) talks with a practioner of 312 meridian exercises.
Zhu joined the acupuncture meridian research group of the Institute of Biophysics under Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Meridian points were discovered in China 2,500 years ago. In Huang Di Nei Jing (The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor), one of the most important ancient medical classics, the meridians were recorded to have the function of "promoting circulation of Xueqi (Blood and Qi) and balancing yin and yang" and "determining life and death and treating hundred diseases."
The meridians were discovered to be a general controlling system for the human body and had the function of preventing diseases and promoting health and longevity. Today, TCM doctors still insert acupuncture needles into the acupoints along the meridians to treat diseases.
However, the existence of the meridians has always been questioned by Western medicine.
To justify the theory, doctor Zhu and his colleagues had spent more than 10 years to experiment with modern methods to demonstrate its biophysical existence.
In the 1980s, the researchers successfully showed the 14 meridians in human body through biophysical methods, which are surprisingly identical to that recorded in ancient classical meridian graph.
For visitors suspicious towards his research, doctor Zhu would proudly demonstrate his two proof tests to them.
He used a mallet to tap different areas on the elbow until the patient heard a loud sound measured through a device similar to the stethoscope. Zhu then marked a red spot at that point.
A line of the red spots determined by the same method is actually showing the position of a meridian, according to Zhu.
He would then place two electrodes of a current meter on the line and stimulation of the current could be felt. When one electrode was placed off the line, one would feel nothing. It showed that the meridian line had the lowest electric impedance, according to Zhu.
