The Jade Dragon Verse of Using Acupuncture (Yu Long Fu) (Journal of Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture)

As a precious ancient Chinese medicine classic, The Jade Dragon Verse of Using Acupuncture (known as “Yu Long Fu” in Chinese) uses “jade dragon” in its name to indicate its great value. This verse summarizes the experience of how to choose the most effective acupuncture points (acupoints) for more than eighty diseases. These diseases include twenty-one ailments in the head, face, neck, shoulder, and back, and twenty-one diseases in the chest and four limbs. The verse provides the most useful acupuncture prescriptions for four gynecological and pediatric diseases, twenty-one internal diseases, and seventeen diseases in other categories. Totally 102 acupuncture points are used for these diseases.

The Jade Dragon Verse of Using Acupuncture emphasizes on the coordination of exterior and interior meridians. Another feature of this verse is that it uses many extra acupuncture points that are outside regular meridians or channels. In this English translation, locations of these points are added by the translator and listed at the end of the verse.

This verse is one of the most popular acupuncture verses in Chinese medicine history. It was originally from Dr. Bian Que, one of the best physicians in Chinese history. He was called the “miraculous doctor” in China. The verse is a revised and extracted version of another longer acupuncture verse The Jade Dragon Song of Using Acupuncture (known as “Yu Long Ge” in Chinese). This verse was first recorded in Wu Gao’s book A Collection of Outstanding Treatises in Acupuncture and Moxibustion (“Zhen Jiu Ju Ying” in Chinese) in the Ming Dynasty (1529). It was then included in another well-known Chinese medicine classic, The Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (“Zhen Jiu Da Cheng” in Chinese) by Jizhou Yang in the Ming Dynasty (1601).

The Jade Dragon Verse of Using Acupuncture has been reprinted for hundreds of years, and learned by generations and generations of acupuncturists. It has become one of the “must-learn” verses in Chinese medicine education in China. It is one of the most valuable classics in traditional Chinese medicine. It is included in the acupuncture textbook used by all of the traditional Chinese medicine colleges in China.

This classic provides the selections of the most effective acupuncture points for healing diseases including but not limited to: abdominal distension and pain, abdominal masses and lumps, anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, bad mouth odor, beriberi, blurred vision, breast swelling, cataract, cheek swelling, constipation, consumptive diseases, convulsive diseases, cough, deafness, dementia, depression, diarrhea, dyspnea, elbow pain, emaciation, epidemic diseases, epilepsy, eye diseases, facial paralysis, fatigue, febrile diseases, flaccidity, headaches, hemorrhoids, hernia, hives, immobility, jaundice, malaria, mania, pain in the feet, pain of the eyes, palpitation, runny noses and sinusitis, scrofula, shoulder pain, stomachaches, stroke and apoplexy, stuffy noses, syncope, toothaches, and vomiting.