Acupuncture for A Hundred Diseases in Verse (Bai Zheng Fu)

In ancient China, an important and commonly used way to study and practice traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is through learning and memorizing Chinese medicine verses. These verses were written by very experienced and famous physicians, and revised again and again in many generations. These verses extracted the most valuable experience and the most important knowledge in practicing Chinese medicine. Even today, many clinicians in China still use these verses as important references to help them solve many difficult medical problems.

Acupuncture for A Hundred Diseases in Verse (known as “Bai Zheng Fu” in Chinese) summarizes the experience of how to choose the most effective acupuncture points (acupoints) for the treatment of about 100 diseases. These diseases include twenty-eight ailments in the head and face, six diseases in the neck and throat, six diseases in the shoulder and back, seven gynecological diseases, one pediatric disease, five infectious diseases, and forty-three diseases in other categories such as psychological problems. Totally 156 acupuncture points are used for these diseases.

A broad range of diseases are covered, from complicated diseases such as diabetes to small problems such as twitching eyelids. Solutions for some of the health problems are hard to find elsewhere in common books, such as deafness caused by anger and nightmares.

This verse is one of the most popular acupuncture verses in the history of Chinese medicine. It was first recorded in Wu Gao’s book A Collection of Outstanding Treatises in Acupuncture and Moxibustion (“Zhen Jiu Ju Ying” in Chinese) in the Ming Dynasty (1529). It was then included in another well-known Chinese medicine classic, The Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (“Zhen Jiu Da Quan” in Chinese) by Jizhou Yang in the Ming Dynasty (1601). This verse has been reprinted for hundreds of years and has become a “must-learn” in Chinese medicine education in China. It is included in the acupuncture textbook used by all of the TCM colleges in China.

This classic provides the best prescriptions of acupuncture points for healing health problems including but not limited to: anger, blurred vision and other eye problems, cough, craziness and other psychological problems, deafness, diabetes, depression, dysentery, edema, epidemic febrile diseases, epilepsy, facial paralysis, goiter, headaches and migraines, hemiplegia, hemorrhoids, hypochondriac pain, indigestion, infertility, itching, leukorrhagia, leukorrhea, loss of voice, malaria, mastitis, menstrual disorders, nightmares, nocturnal emission, nosebleeds, stuffy noses, nasal polyps and other nose problems, numbness, palpitation and other heart problems, rectal prolapse, rashes and other skin diseases, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), sadness, scrofula, sore throat, spasms, stiff neck, tongue problems, toothaches, tuberculosis, twitching eyelids, urination problems, and vomiting.