[The progress of the morphological research on the acupoint]

The morphological research of the acupoint began from 1977. The scholars have studied on three main works as following. 1) The sensory organs in the acupoint: The area of acupoint contains free nerve ending, Vater-Pacini corpuclese and muscular spindle. The nerve fibers are I, II, III types, the chief is II. 2) The segmental distributions of afferent neuronal fibers of the acupoint: The evidence of the experimental research has revealed that the fibers of mainly and essential acupoints are definite to be afferent segments. The fibers of the upper and lower limbs acupoints projected into III-IX lamina of the posterior horn of the spinal cord. 3) The mutual intersect in the dorsal ganglia between the segmental distributions of the afferent neurons of viscera and that of acupoints. It is proposed that the mutual intersect between the segmental distributions of the afferent neurons of viscera and that of the acupoints is probable the morphological foundation for the theory of somato-viscera.