What is a acupuncture meridian.

            In agreement with the Chinese conception of an alive being, the vital energy or qi circulates around the body by a series of ways that, in vertical normally, to each other communicate the entrails and organs in a cycle of changes yin-yang, as if outside an electromagnetic compression wave or, in a permanent balance of operation.

            The disease, injury or disfunction appears when this balance is altered.

            Acupuncture tries with the insertion of special needles, or the heating of certain zones of the skin, or the massage of these certain zones, the reestablishment of this one balance.

            The mentioned zones are the points of acupuncture, places where the circulation of the vital energy can be manipulated or qi.

            The Chinese traditional medicine identifies twelve channels or main routes of communication that correspond with the vital organs of the human body: lungs, large intestine, small intestine, spleen-pancreas, heart, kidneys, gall bladder, cardiovascular system, biliary vesicle, liver, conception vessel, governing vessel and triple heater, being these three last own ones of the Chinese classification of organs (systems of organs according to the western medicine).

            The Chinese traditional medicine distinguishes organs of entrails: the organs differ from the visceras by the fact that the ablation or massive injury of the visceras it does not cause the immediate decease, whereas the ablation or massive injury of the classified ones as organs implies the almost immediate death of the individual; of such way the heart is classified like organ, and the stomach like viscera.

            The number of ordinary meridians either king is correlative to the one of the twelve organs, in addition to the both permanent extraordinary vessels: the one of the conception (in the mean line corporal frontal), and the governing vessel (in the mean line corporal number), in addition to the extraordinary ones so called. We have 365 points within the 14 meridians, called Jing Xue; also peculiar points outside the meridians or points exist, called Qi Xue; and, finally, the painful points or Ashi Xue.

The meridians have the following functions:

- They communicate the interior with the outside of the body, and vice versa. Also, also they communicate the organs and entrails with the members, being the set how an all only one.

- They serve how transmitting, taking to the stimuli and the energy or qi to the interior of the organ or affected place.

- They regulate the balance between organs and entrails, in agreement with the mentioned law of the changement yin-yang.

It can be deduced that, being ways, they are routes of passage for influences that can alter this one balance, like diseases, ailments and attacks to the organism.