[On the Considerations About Heating Materials and Temperature of Moxibustion in Clinical Practice]

Moxibustion, one of the traditional Chinese medicine therapy, plays an important role in the treatment of a variety of clinical conditions, particularly the chronic and deficiency problems. In the present paper, the author reviewed the history of development of moxibustion therapy, and the related materials and heating temperature in ancient China, and also reviewed the history of heating therapy (similar to moxibustion) appearing in ancient Egypt, Greek, Libya, India, Europe, etc. The author thinks that the efficacy of moxibustion intervention mainly depends on the heating temperature and the heated area of the skin (not the heating materials) according to his own research group's experimental outcomes. Some problems of moxibustion should be noted, for example, the ignited moxa-smoke induced environmental contamination which may lead to chronic injury particularly to the health of the related practitioners. The author forecasts that some succedaneous materials of mugwort as physical heating energy (mechanical, electrical, microelectronic, solar energy), chemical, biological and medical heating reagents (acupoint receptor-activator), etc., high technique medical devices are probably developed in the future, minimizing some defects of moxa and expanding clinical application of moxibustion therapy.