THE BODY ELECTRIC

As Western chemistry has become more refined, it is now able to demonstrate that our bodies are indeed filled with energy and electric charges. In the February 1984 issue of Discover magazine, K. C. Cole explained the comparison: "Electricity is almost certainly the most elusive of everyday things: It lives in the walls of our houses, and regulates the lives of our cells.... It runs electric trains and human brains.... Your entire body is a giant electric machine: body chemistry (like all chemistry) is based on electrical bonds." Chinese medicine is based on a person’s ability to maintain the proper circulation of this bioelectric energy through the body. If you have ever had acupuncture, you have experienced the circulation of this bioelectric energy, which the Chinese call chi (pronounced CHEE), in your own body. However, if you have not had this opportunity, there is a simple experiment you can do to feel your body's chi. Rub your hands together for ten seconds and then hold the palms about an inch apart. If you concentrate, you should be able to feel a flow of energy passing between them. The idea of chi is not unique to China. Dr. John Mann and Larry Short, authors of The Body o Light count forty-nine cultures around the world that have a word for chi; the words vary from prana in Sanskrit to neyayoneyah in Lakota Sioux to num, which means "boiling point," in the language of the kalahari !Kung. The West is perhaps unique in its lack of an equivalent term. In the West, we speak about feeling energized or having low energy, but with a few notable exceptions, we tend to ignore this important part of our physical body. f , The concept of chi is gaining increasing acceptance in the medical establishment. A major transition occurred when President Richard Nixon reestablished diplomatic relations with China in 1972. In Beijing, Chinese doctors performed emergency surgery on New York Times correspondent James Reston, using only acupuncture for anesthesia. Since then many delegations of Western physicians to China have witnessed similar events. Chi is just beginning to be understood in the terminology of Western science. Currently, several Western physicians are exploring the phenomenon, such as Robert Becker, a Syracuse University orthopedist and author of The Body Electric, who is trying to explain chi in relation to his work in bioelectricity and healing. It was Dr. Becker’s research into electricity and its role in regenerating bones that led to the current method of using low-level electrical currents to stimulate the mending of fractures.