Acupuncture Rising III

1971: Acupuncture in America
Acupuncture has been practiced in Chinatowns in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York since the beginning days of Chinese immigration, but it was a 1971 article in the New York Times which is generally credited with first bringing acupuncture to the notice of the American public. In July 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a secret visit to China to clear the way for President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China. This was also the month that journalist James Reston (1909 – 1995), a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was visiting China by special permission and invitation. While in China, Reston suffered an appendicitis attack. After Reston's appendix was removed using conventional surgery at the Anti-Imperialist Hospital (now Peking Union Medical College) in Beijing, Dr. Li Chang-Yuan treated his post-operative pain with acupuncture. Reston recounted this experience in a front-page article in the on July 26, 1971, "Now, About My Operation in Peking."⁶ For the vast majority of Americans, this was the first time they had ever heard of acupuncture and the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine. "Acupuncture" officially became a word in American dictionaries.
As a gathering tide of knowledge and tradition concerning acupuncture and Chinese medicine poured into the United States, acupuncture pioneers in this country began their quest to learn and understand the principles of energetic anatomy upon which acupuncture is based, and to apply their understanding to the practice of acupuncture. In an effort to disseminate information about Chinese medicine, two journals were launched in 1973: the American Journal of Acupuncture, published in California; and New York's American Journal of Chinese Medicine. The following year, with the help of Americans Arnie Freiman and Steven Breeker, the late master acupuncturist James Tin Yau So founded the first acupuncture school in the United States, the New England School of Acupuncture (NESA). Dr. So then supported Dr. Gene Bruno and Dr. Steven Rosenblatt as they founded a second school in the United States, the California Acupuncture College, located in West Los Angeles. Dr. So studied and practiced acupuncture for decades in China before bringing acupuncture medicine to the United States. He developed two of the earliest English textbooks in the field of acupuncture: The Book of Acupuncture Points and The Treatment of Disease with Acupuncture. Dr. So is considered by many to be the "father of American acupuncture."
While acupuncture and Chinese Medicine were being introduced to the United States, students from all over the world were invited to study in China. This endeavor was initiated in 1975, when the World Health Organization (WHO), with the cooperation of the Chinese State Council, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Foreign Economics and Trade, authorized China to initiate three acupuncture programs for international students. These programs were affiliated with three leading acupuncture and Chinese medicine institutes: the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing, Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Shanghai and Nanjing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Nanjing. In 1983, these three international acupuncture training centers/colleges were officially designated as the Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing International Acupuncture Training Centers and have trained students from more than 140 countries and regions since they were opened.
This article has been  published in Acupuncture Today.