Insights of a Senior Acupuncturist - Softcover

Lee, Miriam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0936185333 ISBN 13: 9780936185330

Publisher: Blue Poppy Pr, 1992

Synopsis

This book details the ingenious use of only five major acupuncture points to effectively treat a wide variety of ills. Written by one of the most experienced and well-known acupuncturists in California, this book is a must read for students and practitioners alike. It is written in a deceptively simple, unpretentious style characteristic of its author, but readers should not be deceived. The theory it contains is profound, stemming from the Four Great Masters of the Jin-Yuan dynasties.

About this title

About the Author

Miriam Lee has been practicing acupuncture for over 40 years. She came to the US in the mid-1960's and was a highly instrumental player in the passage of the first acupuncture licensure bill in California. Until her very recent retirement, Miriam's clinic was always full to overflowing. She was one of the most sought after acupuncture practitioners in the entire US.

From the Back Cover

Miriam Lee has been practicing acupuncture for over 40 years. She came to the United States from Singapore where she lived for 17 years after leaving mainland China in 1949. In China, she was a nurse and midwife before becoming an acupuncturist and lived through the Japanese occupation and World War II.

When she arrived in California, acupuncture was illegal. So Miriam worked on a factory assembly line and gave treatments quietly out of her home, later sharing a space with an open-minded MD. In April 1974, Miriam was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. With the overwhelming support of her patients, she was acquitted and made part of an acupuncture research project at San Francisco University where she practiced until 1976 when acupuncture was legalized in California.

Miriam Lee has been an important voice in the promotion of acupuncture and acupuncture legislation in California, has taught hundreds of Western students, and has treated thousands of patients. Today, Miriam is semi-retired and resides in Palo Alto, CA.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Author's Preface

I came to the United States from Singapore where I had lived for 17 years after leaving mainland China in 1949. In China I had been a nurse and a midwife before becoming an acupuncturist, and I had lived through the Japanese occupation and World War II, extremely difficult times in a land accustomed to hard times.

Life is easier in Singapore than it is in China, and as an acupuncturist, I began seeing there the kinds of problems that arise from unfairness and anger which are so common in America. Treatments for depression, hyperactivity, and mental problems such as schizophrenia or suicide are not discussed in acupuncture books from China. There the struggle for life itself takes so much energy that few people are able to suffer anguish over the quality of life. In Singapore as in America, there is enough bread, and so there is more qi caught up in emotional blockages.

When I first came to California acupuncture was illegal. I worked on an assembly line at Hewlett Packard and attended church, building a life for myself in this country where my medicine was against the law. I could only wait to see how I would be called upon to give what I had learned. In 1973 Dr. Harry Oxenhandler, an M.D., offered to share his office with me. I could only practice for a limited amount of time each day, until 1 P.M. I had to start earlier and earlier in the morning. By 5 A.M. there were 4 or 5 people waiting in their cars to get in. So for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, I saw between 75 and 80 patients a day, 14 to 17 patients an hour. I had 4 beds for those who had to lie down. People in wheelchairs were treated in the bathroom. Those who could sit I treated in the waiting room or on the foot of the treatment tables. I worked alone, putting in and taking out the needles, and recording all the treatments. The pressure was tremendous. I had to come up with a safe, effective treatment that I could apply quickly and easily to people with ordinary sicknesses so that I could focus on those with really difficult conditions.

There is an old Chinese saying, "If you don't press the olive seed, there will be no oil." The pressure was a great challenge for me. In the afternoons and evenings I poured over the classics looking for guidance. In the Nei Jing I found my starting point:

"When the stomach and spleen, the central jiao, are attacked by emotion, pure qi cannot ascend to the brain, and the evil qi, the waste, cannot descend. It will remain stuck in the stomach."

In the Western way of thinking pure qi is oxygen; the evil qi, or waste, is carbon dioxide. When there is no pure qi or oxygen in the head, the person thinks only on the darker side, and death seems like the only possible solution to life's difficulties.

Zu San Li (St 36) is the best point to free stuck qi in the central jiao. You can drain or supplement it to make the pure qi go up. Because many cases of depression are due to stagnant liver qi, I chose San Yin Jiao (Sp 6) to help the liver along with the kidneys and spleen.

I also needed a way to make the evil qi go down, to drain it. Draining Qu Chi (LI 11) and He Gu (LI 4) drains evil qi from the body. Qu Chi (LI 11) helps move the bowel, clearing waste from the intestines. Draining Lie Que (Lu 7) clears the kidneys as well, and the kidneys rule the brain. When the brain has enough oxygen, then the person thinks on the brighter side again.

Because the stomach and large intestine channels have more qi and more blood, you can do no harm by treating them at any time for any person. These 10 needles have allowed me to think fast, treat fast. They are safe for new hands, and can be used successfully by those who do not yet know how to diagnose. They served me well during those years when I had no time for diagnosis beyond recognizing "here is a person whose central jiao has been attacked by emotion".

On April 15, 1974, Governor Reagan vetoed a bill legalizing the practice of acupuncture in California. I was arrested for practicing medicine without a license on April 16. The police came at 6:45 A.M. when I already had 10 people in the office. I had to take the needles out and let them go. Some had driven a long way to be treated, including one from Redding, 4 hours away.

At the trial my patients filled the courtroom. There were so many of them court officials didn't know what to do with them all. Day after day they returned to protest being denied access to the only medicine which had helped them, and to insist that they had a right to choose to be treated with acupuncture. Within a matter of days legislators reached a compromise with Governor Reagan, and acupuncture was made an "experimental procedure" which could be carried out as research. I was made part of a project at San Francisco University and practiced under this umbrella until Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislation legalizing acupuncture in 1976.

As I said, this 10 needle treatment is safe for new hands. I have students who told me they have applied these points for 6 years, and the treatments have never failed. When they record these treatments they simple write "M.L. Great", for "Miriam Lee's Great 10 Needle Treatment".

Edition details

• Publisher: Blue Poppy Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0936185333
• ISBN 13: 9780936185330
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 140