Ferreira Medeiros Ephraim^[1] ; Lan Fengli^[2]

Abstract

The use of concepts and metaphors originated from ancient musical theories is an important, yet neglected in modern textbooks, feature of the theories that base the early practice of acupuncture in China.

In this paper, we highlight how concepts and ideas originated from the ancient musical theories influenced and contributed to shape the discourse of acupuncture theories in Huangdi Neijing 《黄帝内经 》 (HDNJ). We correlate musical metaphors and medical theories when investigating the Yellow Bell (Huangzhong-黄锺), ametaphor from an important musical concept that is also an ancient musical instrument and appears in one important passage of the text of chapter 78 of HDNJ Lingshu - On the Nine Needles《黄帝内经 .灵枢经》《九针论》 when explaining the choice of the number nine as the primordial number of shapes for the classical acupuncture needles.

This exemplifies the central role that ancient Chinese musical theories and its metaphors, embedded in the discourse of HDNJ, plays in the construction of the early theories and practices of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine.