A Study on Temperature-Changes in vivo with Moxibustions

Abstract

Clinically, it has been recognized that moxibustion with artemisia stimulates the internal parts of the body without a burn on the skin. Recently, Matsuyama et al. reported that the maximun temperature of moxibustion varied with every change of size, mass, hardness, quality, and humidity of moxa. The purpose of this study was to investigate experimentally the temperature-changes in vivo with moxibustion by using laboratory animals.
Male mice of the C57BL/6CrSlc strain (30 weeks old) and chromel-alumel thermocouples (0.32mm diam. and 0.5Ω electric resistance) were used. Following autoclave sterilization, the chromel-alumel thermocouples were surgically set in the subcutaneous and the muscle layers of the mice. Three weeks later, the temperature-changes in the mice with 5mg of Ibuki-moxa were registered by a calibrated recorder.
As illustrated in Fig. 2, maximum temperature diminished in the following order; on the skin (A), in the subcutaneous layer (B), and in the muscle layer (C). And the time occupied on the temperature restoration in the body became longer than that on the skin. As illustrated in Fig. 3, a series of three moxa-cauterizations induced the maximum temperatures to diminish on the skin (A), and to augment in the subcutaneous (B) and muscle layer (C). The former is caused by the barriers of previous moxa tar, sap, and ash to the heat conduction, while the latter is due to the accumulation of prior moxibustion heat. These results indicate that a series of three moxibustions enhances the stimulation not to the shallow parts but to the deep parts of the body. However, it should be made to clarify whether this conclusion holds good for clinical cases.