Specific needling methods for specific disorders, with depth and duration prescribed.
Su Wen (素问)General Principles of Needling
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English is translated from the Chinese vernacular. The original text and its pinyin sit beneath each sentence in smaller type; hide them whenever you prefer to read the translation alone.
The skilled needler need not first take the pulse; he listens to the patient. If the illness is in the head, needle it, needling to the bone until the illness ceases; but do not injure bone, flesh or skin, for the skin is only the road.
Needling what presses on the viscera, take where the visceral qi gathers, and stop when cold and heat in the abdomen have gone.
ORIGINAL刺之迫脏，脏会，腹中寒热去而止。
cì zhī pò zàng，zàng huì，fù zhōng hán rè qù ér zhǐ。
Where illness in the lower abdomen has formed a mass, needle below the fleshy part of the skin down to the lower abdomen and stop there.
ORIGINAL病在少腹有积，刺皮腯以下，至少腹而止。
bìng zài shǎo fù yǒu jī，cì pí tú yǐ xià，zhì shǎo fù ér zhǐ。
—— 《素问·长刺节论》
Chang Ci Jie Lun is practical in a way that much of the Su Wen is not. Disorder by disorder, it gives the appropriate depth of insertion, the number of points, the duration of treatment and the endpoint at which needling should stop.
Read alongside the Guan Zhen chapter of the Ling Shu, it shows that classical practice was not uniform: the same needle was used at very different depths and for very different lengths of time depending on what was being treated. The chapter is a useful corrective to the assumption that Chinese needling was always shallow and brief.
ANNOTATION
Yin needling (阴刺): one needle inserted with four beside it, used for cold and heat patterns.
Great organs (大脏): the five viscera.
Skin and fat (皮腯): 腯 is pronounced tú, flesh well filled; here the skin and flesh of the abdomen generally.
COMMENTARY
The text is archaic and commentators diverge, but the principle of setting depth by illness is clear. Read alongside the nine needlings of the Guan Zhen, it shows that ancient needling was never haphazard: the depth of the needle answered the depth of the illness.