Ellicott City, MD

There are several physiological theories about the meridians and points of acupressure. One involves nerve reflexes between the skin and the visceral organs; there are others involving the electrical properties of fascia (connective tissue), and another involving embryological connections throughout the body that persist into adulthood.

It's possible that different points work by different mechanisms. The explanation is far from complete. Certainly the "placebo effect" plays a role - as it does in any treatment.

But Chinese medicine gives us a model of the human being that is not much concerned with these anatomical and physiological explanations. This model is a functional, not a structural, one; the Vital Substances, the Zang-Fu organs, and the meridians are best understood by what they do, not by chopping people up looking for structures.

The anatomical/reductionist model of the human being and the Chinese medical model are complementary, not opposed to each other. The relationship between the models is similar to two very different ways we can talk about music. We might describe a certain sound in terms of a time-varying frequency spectrum, or we might say something like "that's an A chord played on a steel-string guitar". The former description may tell you why, when you play it through your amp, it makes your speaker buzz because of some resonance; the latter tells you how it works in the music.

Both models are correct, but emphasize different aspects of our experience.