So many questions arise around the main instrument of Chinese acupuncture: material, sizes, numbers, qualities, manufacturing, hygiene, techniques of insertion, intrinsic properties, adaptation to times and countries. If one searches for all the texts where the topic is mentioned in a not too repetitive way it would be possible to write hundreds of pages. On the other hand many claims and statements are questionable. Let’s break down this vast issue in a certain number of short subtopics:

1. The origins: when chinese archeologists unearth a needle, or several of them, in a site they are prospecting, they often declare that they have found an acupuncture instrument. The sites often go back to the neolithic period, making the assumption rather dubious because it is unlikely that acupuncture existed already as a coherent and sophisticated technique.

2. This brings up the question of what is acupuncture. All civilizations have been using pointed and sharpened instruments for rudimentary medical purposes like piercing an abscess. But only in China, and much later than neolithic times, have needles been associated with a complex technique supposed to manage the flows of energy in the body.

3. Quite a stir was created when medical books were found in a tomb, still untouched, and dating from 168 BC. There was mention of meridians and the technique of moxibustion, but not a word on points or on needles! We suppose that there several medical schools in a China which was already a huge country, but it was still unsettling. On the other side a bunch of gold and silver needles were found in a tomb dating around the end of the second century BC, amongst other medical instruments or medicinal preparations.

4. The first book on acupuncture of which we have a copy (printed nearly one thousand years after the original) is called the Neijing, the Classic of the Interior. When the authors recommend needling a point, they usually mention only one or two points, no more. The reason lies probably in the fact that the needles made then were certainly much thicker, and the point not so sharp, making the insertion quite painful.

5. One can speculate as to the nature of the material used for making a needle. Bamboo, jade, bronze, copper, gold, silver, other kinds of metals. Already in the Neijing the emperor Huangdi (the “Yellow Emperor) suggests that one abandon the stone needles for metal needles.

6. Ritually the acupuncture manuals describe “the nine needles of acupuncture”. Actually they reflect more the kit of a medical practitioner as some of the needles are obviously used as lancets or as bleeding instruments. Modern replicas of these kits have been manufactured, I hope for decoration purposes, and the length and diameter of even the thinnest of the needles are impressive.

7. It is probable that for centuries steel was the favorite metal for manufacturing needles. But all these metals had the inconvenience of deteriorating when in contact with oxygen. Only since 1913, when stainless steel, a mixture of iron, chrome and nickel, was invented, were most acupuncture needles made of that very practical alloy.

8. With the belief that the metal in itself had a specific role to play in the action of the needles, a few researchers experimented with all kinds of materials, from zinc to platinum, from manganese to cobalt, from copper to cadmium. The results were not convincing.

9. Nowadays the needles are quite thin. The gauge seldom exceeds 0.32 mm, the thinnest can be only 0.16 mm. The shaft is often covered with a layer of silicone so that they slide better when inserted in the skin and flesh. The hardness, solidity and flexibility of the shaft, or body, of the needle must be balanced, so as not to break and not to bend too easily. But it is on the tip that the manufacturers have concentrated all their efforts: depending on its shape and sharpness it must glide into the skin effortlessly, and inflict as little pain, if none at all.

10. Several countries have specialized in the manufacturing of needles. China, of course, Japan, Korea, Germany, maybe some others. The prices are usually very reasonable, although the range is from one to three, and could make a difference for the practitioner at the end of the year.

11. Needles are packed in sterilized blisters, and are disposable, which means that they should be thrown away after one use. However in some parts of the world needles are properly sterilized and reused.

12. Last but not least, how to insert the needle, how deep, at what angle, and mostly, should it be manipulated to induce a bigger stimulation? Arguments are still flowing because it used to be a theoretical stronghold of traditional acupuncturists. Moreover the variety of movements of the needle that one can produce is too impressive to be realistic.

13. It amounts to the fundamental questions: how to do acupuncture? In acupuncture courses it should be answered in a pragmatic way, not too fancy but not too strict either.

Being the “king” of instruments in acupuncture, it is the object of many discussions. Each of the paragraphs above could be lengthened and detailed considerably. Let us say that a combination of history, technical evolution, practicality and adjustments, have made the instrument of acupuncture more civilized and less feared by western patients.