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    Chinese people living during the Neolithic Age practiced a primitive form of acupuncture known as stone-needling. The progression of needles went from bamboo to golden needles. Eventually steel needles used became the most commonly used material for acupuncture needles. Practitioners also used moxibustion to treat diseases in the brutally cold climate of North China. This technique involved burning, fumigating, or ironing a certain part of the body with lit materials like moxa, another name for the plant mugwort. According to reliable sources, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) originated in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 25 A.D.). It's establishment is based on thousands of years of experience of Chinese medicine, principle, and reflection on the relationship between man and nature.

 

    The spread of TCM to Japan happened because of the voyage of Chinese monk-physician Chiso (or Zhi Cong), who brought 160 volumes of Chinese treatises in 562 A.D. The Japanese assimilated very quickly the multitude of knowledge about acupuncture, moxibustion and herbal medicine. The Japanese mindset at the time was that Chinese culture was far more advanced than their own. In their excitement, they persuaded Chinese envoys to return with more medical literature. As early as 718 A.D. the government sponsored a medical school with a seven-year acupuncture program and a three-year anma massage program. Waichi Sugiyama is considered the "father of acupuncture" in Japan. He invented the insertion tubes that are in common use today. His acupuncture schools had blind acupuncturists who administered acupuncture and approached literature more pragmatically. During World War II, under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, American forces attempted to put an outright ban on acupuncture and moxibustion, however, the Japanese government enacted laws for separate licensure of acupuncture, moxibustion and anma and shiatsu massage therapies.

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     Five Element Constitutional Acupuncture revolves primarily around the work of one man, the Englishman J.R. Worsley (1923-2003). He created Five Element style in the 1960s and 1970s, influenced by passages from the classics like the Neijing, composed of the Suwen (Simple Questions) and Lingshu (Spiritual Pivot), and the Nanjing (Classic of Difficulties). A practitioner of Five Element style must observe a patient's color, sound, odor and emotion in order to determine their predominant element. The element that the practitioner choses upon, whether it be Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water, becomes associated with a patient's constitutional imbalance, also known as Constitutional Factor (CF).

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     Worsley started off training as a physiotherapist and naturopath. He began attending seminars by various acupuncture instructors from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, supplementing his education with trips to the Far East. Worsley's primary mentor, Bunkei Ono, had trained in an acupuncture school for the blind, as was the custom in Japan. The underlying principle he learned from Ono was touch in diagnosis. At Leamington Spa, Worsley taught his own interpretation of Five Element acupuncture, teaching hundreds of students. 

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