Meridians Under the Skin

The physical nature of the acupuncture meridian system is currently the subject of enquiry. The original structural descriptions for the meridian system contained in the Huang Di Nei Jing, The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine, are detailed and specific. The Nei Jing states that dissection has been used as a tool for looking at the anatomy of the human body. The words used in the Nei Jing to describe meridians repeatedly contain the character for silk. The fascia of the body resembles silk in appearance. It pervades the body, wrapping around every structure, alternatively separating structures, or connecting them. An obvious question arises: was the character for silk chosen to describe meridians because it was what was observed by dissection by the authors of the Nei Jing? If this hypothesis holds, the nature of the physical substrate for acupuncture could then be literally described in the characters originally used for the meridian network - the silk-like fascial tissue of the body.