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After he traced the image of the spine and the limbs, Nogier examined thoracic
organs, abdominal organs, and central nervous system projections onto the
ear. He needed a few years, however, to understand that the ear had a triple
innervation, and that each innervation supported the image of an
embryological derivative: endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm
Auriculotherapy tends to relieve pain more rapidly than body acupuncture. Ear
acupuncture needling is more often the treatment of choice for detoxification
from substance abuse than is body acupuncture. Ear acupuncture has been
found to quickly relieve postoperative pain, inflammation from joint sprains,
pain from bone fractures and the discomfort from gall stones. It readily can
reduce inflammations, nausea, itching and fever.
2.1 Micro-acupuncture systems The first theory to be considered is the concept
that auricular acupuncture is one of several microsystems throughout the
human body, a self-contained system within the whole system. In Oriental
thinking, there is a systematic correspondence of each part to the whole. The
microcosm of each person is interrelated to the macrocosm of the world that
surrounds them. Even in the West, medieval European philosophers described
the relationship between organs of the microcosm of man to the planetary
constellations in the macrocosm of the heavens. Modern medicine accepts that
the microorganism of each cell within the body is interrelated to the
macroorganism of the whole body. Just as each cell has a protective
membrane, flowing fluids, and a regulating center, so too does the whole body
have skin, blood, and the brain. For the whole of the organism to be in balance,
each smaller system within that organism must be in balance.
Consulta tambin
Relationship of auricular regions to nerve pathways: There are actually four
principal nerves, which innervate the human ear. Figure 2.26 shows the
distribution of different nerves to different auricular regions. Since the entire
auricle is covered with a thin skin layer containing extensively branching
nerves, all anatomical areas of the external ear are in part related to
ectodermal tissue. Somatic trigeminal nerve: The fifth cranial nerve is part of
the somatic nervous system pathway that processes sensations from the face
and controls some facial movements. The mandibular division of the trigeminal
nerve is distributed across the antihelix and the surrounding auricular areas of
the antitragus, scaphoid fossa, triangular fossa and helix. This auricular region
represents somatosensory nervous tissue associated with mesodermal organs.
Somatic facial neive: The seventh cranial nerve is an exclusively motor division
of the somatic nervous system, controlling most facial movements. It
predominately supplies the posterior regions of the auricle that represent
motor nerve control of mesodermal tissue. Autonomic vagus nerve: The tenth
cranial nerve is a branch of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic
nervous system. It processes sensations from visceral organs in the head, the
thorax, and the abdomen and it controls the smooth muscle activity of the
internal viscera. Vagus nerve fibers spread throughout the concha of the ear
and represent neurons associated with endodermal tissue.
Auricular representation of embryological tissue: All vertebrate organisms
begin as the union of a single egg and a single sperm, but this one cell soon
divides to become a multicellular organism as shown in Figure 2.27. This
developing ball of cells ultimately folds in on itself and differentiates into the
three different layers of embryological tissue. It is from these three basic types
of tissue that all other organs are formed. The organs derived from these
embryological layers are projected on to different regions of the auricle. Table
2.5 outlines these embryological divisions and the corresponding auricular
regions.
Endodermal tissue: The endoderm becomes the gastrointestinal digestive tract,
the respiratory system and abdominal organs such as the liver, pancreas,
urethra and bladder. This portion of the embryo also generates parts of the
endocrine system, including the thyroid gland, parathyroid gland, and thymus
gland. Deep embryological tissue is represented in the concha, the central
valley of the ear. Stimulating this area of the ear affects metabolic activities
and nutritive disorders of the internal organs that originate from the endoderm
layer of the embryo. Disturbances in internal organs create an obstacle to the
success of medical treatments, so these metabolic disorders must be corrected
before complete healing can occur.