Urethan-anesthetized rats were electrically stimulated for 15min by inserting acupuncture needles as electrodes into the muscle of the hips (5Hz, 3-5mA). Another rats were stimulated by moxibustion (moxa, 10mg, 10 times) for 15min. Both groups of rats were sacrificed and muscular tissues were excised 3 hours after the stimulation. The proteins extracted from the homogenized and centrifuged tissues were analyzed by two-dimensional gel electrophoreses. Stress proteins (hsp) with molecular weight of 70000 (p70), 85000 (p85) and 100000 (p100) were detected in both rats stimulated by electroacupuncture and moxibustion. Each ratio of p70, p85 and p100 to control proteins analyzed by personal image analyze system was 4.5%, 17.4% and 1.0% in electroacupuncture, 6.8%, 20.8% and 1.2% in moxibustion, respectively. The tendency of the ratios in both cases was almost similar.

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A new therapy was recently developed by combining low frequency in situ needle acupuncture with Body Sonic Pad therapy. With this therapy, the patient lies on a bed fitted with Body Sonic Pads which vibrate slightly, in synchrony with the low-pitched sounds of the music which is played during the therapy. The patient listens to music and can feel the music-synchronized vibration of the pads while receiving in situ needle acupuncture. We recently assessed the effectiveness of this combined therapy.
The subjects were 30 patients with chronic shoulder stiffness who visited our department of anesthesiology. These patients received each of the following 5 treatments at different times in random order: (1) Method M (listening to music without any other therapy), (2) Method B (Body Sonic Pad therapy without listening to music), (3) Method MB (Body Sonic Pad therapy while listening to music), (4) Method L (conventional continuous low-frequency (3Hz) in situ needle acupuncture), and (5) Method MBL (continuous low-frequency (3Hz) in situ needle acupuncture combined with Body Sonic Pad therapy while listening to music). The direct therapeutic effect and the degree of comfort during treatment were compared among these five methods. The acupuncture therapy for shoulder stiffness consisted of stimulating the standard points in the shoulder and neck region with 30mm acupuncture needles (No. 20). The electrical stimulation lasted for 20 minutes. The music used for Body Sonic Pad therapy was primarily classical music selected according to the desire of the patients. The effectiveness was rated by the patients on a 4-point scale (markedly effective, effective, slightly effective and ineffective). Effective or markedly effective cases were regarded as responding to the therapy. The level of comfort during treatment was rated on an 11-point scale.
The number of patients who responded to the therapy was 7 (23%) for Method M, 6 (20%) for Method B, 10 (34%) for Method MB, 18 (60%) for Method L and 23 (77%) in Method MBL. The response rate was significantly higher for Method MBL when compared to Method M or MB. The mean level of comfort during treatment (rated on a visual analog scale; 0=most uncomfortable; 10=most comfortable) was 6.3±2.1 for Method M, 6.0±2.1 for Method B, 7.0±1.6 for Method MB, 7.2±1.9 for Method L and 8.3±1.6 for Method MBL. Thus, low frequency in situ needle acupuncture combined with Body sonic Pad therapy was slightly superior to the other therapies.

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From a viewpoint of the Oriental Medicine, I judged that pollinosis is an abnormal symptom of the lungs system and the large intestine system. So I burnt moxa on some effective spots “Tsubo” of above mentioned systems of the pollinosis patients. About the remedial value, I reported on my first report “MOXIBUSTION THERAPY FOR POLLINOSIS I”.
This time I compared and examined the symptoms of two patient-groups. One group consists of 9 moxibustion therapy patients, and the other consists of 5 medicinal therapy patients who took antiallergic.
A term of treatment was from February to March in 1990.
The effective spots “Tsubo” of moxibustion therapy patients on which I burnt moxa are three spots selected from “Daitsui” and the lungs system the large intestine system of right and left arms. Quantity of moxa is a half grain of rice size, and I burnt the quantity of moxa three times without a break on the same spot. I tried this treatment four times a week.
As the remedial value, the symptoms of moxibustion therapy patients as well as medicinal therapy patients didn't get worse and were steadied on the days when a large number of pollens flew.
When I continued to burn moxa, each symptom of the patient got better in the latter half of the term of treatment.
So I think moxa cautery for pollinosis patients was effective on controling the symptoms.

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In order to clarify whether the difference in the appearance rate of tenderness exist between the patients with abnormal neurological findings and the patients without them, the tenderness were examined in 81 patients with low back pain.
In the measurements, the pressure of 5-6kg/cm² was given on each points by fingertip. The compression were made in turn from proximal points to distal points. The appearance of the tenderness were significantly greater in the group with abnormal neurological findings than in the group without them (P<0.01-0.05). The marked tenderness appeared along the posterior branches of lumbar and sacral nerves and sciatic nerve.
It was suggested that the tenderness would be one of the important index reflecting well the condition of the disease.

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In order to clarrify the clinical significance of blood letting technique in the patients with tarsal tunnel syndorome, clinical study was undertaken for 17 cases. (27 feet) The treatment consisted of one or combination of the following methods: blood letting technique for regio tarsal tunnel, acupuncture for muscle flexor hallucislongs and etc. “Remarkable effect” and “effect” were obtained with combination group in 81.3% of the cases, and acupuncture alone in 27.3%. “No effect” was obtaind with combination group in only 1 of the case (6.2%: by ganglion), and acupuncture alone in 72.7%. The combination group (without ganglion) had 2.3 times, whereas the acupuncture alone group 5.7 times. Frome the fact that results were obtained in the combination group with significantly fewer tretments. It was indicated that the blood letting techniqure of regio tarsal tunnel is important. Marked effectiveness was seen more fregent among the essential type of the acupuncture tretment. Although there problem involving the estimated effect on a insufficiently comparative study, it has been found in there resolt that blood letting therapy for regio trasal tunnel one of the effective methods for essential tarsal tunnel syndorome.

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In investigating all the back articles of the Japan Society of Acupuncture Journal (vol. 32 no. 1 1982) until the present (vol. 41 no. 2 1991) it was found that out of 169 articles using statistical analysis 164 of them (97%) contained some kind of problem. Of these, 99 out of 105 (94%) stimulus experimentations by animal and human, and 62 out 64 (97%) clinical studys were found to contain misuses of statistics approximately the same percentage for each group.
A high incidence of problem was of multiplicity, with 73 out of 164 problem articles (45%) containing misuse of statistics.
Beside this, 19% (31/164) of the articles failed to list the methods of analysis or test of significance used, 13% (22/164) published their conclusions based only on comparisons within a group, 14% (23/164) published only the rate of effectiveness, without reporting the rate of uncertain results, for example, confidence interval, and 12% (19/164) failed to give assurances against randomness. Overall there are 18 checkpoints, but there is a less than 10% rate of statistical misuse in each of the others.
Because each report has multiple problem the total percentage is greater than 100%. Even excluding the 19% of the articles failing to list methods of analysis or test of significance and the 14% listing only the rates of effectiveness, neither of which ultimately affect the article results, there ara still statistical misuse in 62% of the articles using statistical analysis.
Looking at the authors it can be seen that 11 writers account for 30% (49 articles) of the problem. In short, the same people are repeating the same mistakes in from 3 to 7 articles each.
Of these, 91% contain problems of multiplicity, and 55% contain comparisons conducted within a group instead of between groups as required. These are their most glaring faults.

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[in Japanese]

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