[Analysis on the ancient clinical application of Taiyuan (LU 9)]

The ancient literature on Taiyuan (LU 9) was collected to summarize the application laws of this acupoint. One thousand TCM ancient works collected in Chinese Medical Dictionary (fourth edition) were retrieved. The literature on the indications of Taiyuan (LU 9), the indications of Taiyuan (LU 9) combined prescriptions, the laws of acupoints combination and the techniques of acupuncture and moxibustion was collected systematically and the database was set up. It is found that there are 333 provisions in compliance with the inclusive standard of Taiyuan (LU 9), 306 provisions for the treatment of disorders and 66 relevant ancient works. There are 119 provisions relevant with the indication of single Taiyuan (LU 9) , 187 provisions for the applications of the combined prescriptions and 143 acupoints for the combined acupoints. Taiyuan (LU 9) and the combined prescriptions are applied to every department in clinic, especially for the disorders of TCM internal medicine department. The combined acupoints are distributed among the fourteen meridians and extra points and had been used totally for 1142 times. Of these points, there are 9 acupoints from the lung meridian of hand-taiyin and 25 acupoints from the bladder meridian of foot-taiyang, with the highest use frequency, 195 times and 141 times respectively, accounting for 17.08% and 12.35% of the total frequency. The common pairs of combination are Taiyuan (LU 9) and Yuji (LU 10), Taiyuan (LU 9) and Lieque (LU 7) and Taiyuan (LU 9) and Taibai (SP 3). The common dose of moxibustion at the acupoint is 3 cones. The depth of insertion is 0.2 cun and the acupuncture time is two breathes.