Wang Tao compiles the formulas of his era but deliberately omits needling.
Wai Tai Mi Yao (外台秘要)Moxibustion
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 method of needling has from antiquity been held profound, and people today cannot fathom it.
Wang Tao assembled the Wai Tai Mi Yao in the eighth century as a comprehensive collection of prescriptions. In its acupuncture section he chose to record moxibustion methods and to leave needling aside.
His stated reason was the risk of harm from the needle in unskilled hands. The choice is worth knowing because it shows that the prestige of needling was not universal even in the Tang, and that moxibustion was for many practitioners the safer and therefore the preferred instrument. It is a useful corrective to the assumption that the history of acupuncture is a history of the needle.
ANNOTATION
Outer terrace (外台): the office outside the secretariat in Tang times; Wang Tao served in the Hongwen Institute and so could read the medical books held there.
Mingtang (明堂): the general name for ancient charts and books of channels and points.
COMMENTARY
Wang Tao’s decision has been controversial. Yet his caution is understandable: to force a technique whose transmission has been lost may indeed do harm. As acupuncture goes out into the world, questions of safety come to the fore again, and Wang Tao’s misgivings were not entirely without ground.