Preliminary Results Related to the Principle and Application of Drug Galvano-Acupuncture Chen Fu 1, Barbara Oakley 2, Shudong Li 3, Wenlei Zhao 4 1 Science of Medicine Research Institute, Kaifung, Henan, China 2 School of Engineering and Computer Science, Oakland University, Rochester, MI The Third Technical Secondary School of Kaifeng, Henan, China 4 Jiaotong University, Dalian, Liaoning, China

Abstract Drug galvano-acupuncture is a new medical therapy that has been developed and refined over thirty-one years of research and clinical practice. It uses a combination of modern technology, traditional acupuncture, herbal medicine, and massage therapy techniques. The therapy works by inducing an electric field at the surface of the skin that allows various medications to penetrate the skin’s surface. The interacting combination of medication, along with electrical and mechanical stimulation, appears to quickly produce healing effects with no side effects. This method has been broadly used with what appear to be positive effects on a number of different conditions, including neuralgia, asthma, and stroke.

Background Drug galvanoacupuncture has been developed over thirty-one years of research and clinical practice at the Science of Medicine Research Institute in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China. In this technique, different medical conditions are treated with a variety of traditional Chinese medications while percussing the patient’s skin with a specially designed electrode that allows the medication to more easily penetrate the skin’s surface. According to traditional Chinese medicine, this technique is felt to adjust vital energy and the blood, remove obstruction to the meridians, and eliminate inflammation. This in turn helps tissue to recover, and can even affect the function of the brain cortex through its nerve connections to various points near the surface of the body. The effects on the microcirculation and metabolism produced by this new treatment modality appear not only to ameliorate the patient’s symptoms, but also somehow to frequently eliminate the root cause of the patient’s disease.

How the treatment is conducted The treatment is carried out by using a specially designed positively and negatively charged electrode to simultaneously repel and push drugs (Chinese herbal medications) into a human body through the skin. Various electrical wave-form types and frequencies are used, along with mechanical percussion—the electrodes continuously tap the surface of the skin. It should be noted that this therapy does not use needles to penetrate the skin, and is therefore far safer than many other techniques as far as concern related to transmissible diseases. It also has minimal associated pain and no discernable side effects.

Use of the technique in clinical practice Dr. Fu, on the left, is holding the small, thin electrode device that is tapping a gauze bandage soaked with Chinese traditional medicine.

Clinical Application The patient is treated while either lying or sitting. The appropriate Chinese herbal tincture for the disease is prepared. A gauze bandage is soaked in the tincture, and the bandage is then applied to patient’s skin. Next, the electrode is activated and rapidly tapped, using a spring mechanism, against the skin. This applies the appropriate mechanical and electric stimulation to the patient. For most patients, treatment is taken once per day for thirty to sixty minutes, with a course of treatments lasting ten days. If symptoms still remain, another course of treatments is taken after three to five-day rest.

Information related to success rate In 1993 alone (a year for which complete statistics were kept), the first author, Dr. Fu, treated and evaluated 620 patients with drug galvano- acupuncture, including 330 men and 290 women, with ages ranging from ten months to 96 years. Using as an evaluation standard asymptomatic and full function as success, having progress in symptom or function as improvement and no progress as failure, she found an overall success rate of 72.68%, improvement rate of 26.84%, and failure rate of 0.48%.

Possible areas of application The method has been applied to a number of conditions. An abbreviated listing follows—the reader might keep in mind that the treatment includes a broad variety of Chinese herbal medications, so that the possibilities for treatment are very broad. Bearing these caveats in mind, over the past thirty years, drug galvano-acupuncture at the Science of Medicine Research Institute in Kaifeng appears to have alleviated symptoms related to hypertension, hypotension, gastroenteritis, amenorrhea, diarrhea, neuralgia, Bell’s paralysis, facial spasms, headache, epilepsy, stroke, alopecia, ankylosing spondylitis, and rheumatoid arthritis, among others.

Appropriate notes of caution Naturally, some of those successes and improvements in patients may have been due to the natural course of the syndrome. Additionally, the success or improvement is as reported by the patient and discerned by the physician (insofar as possible). Many of the patients are poor and unable to afford re-imaging via x-rays or CTs once the symptoms have remitted—indeed, once the symptoms have disappeared, it is sometimes difficult to find the patient to follow up. Future research will involve examination and comparison of pre- and post-therapy x-ray and CT images.

Dr. Fu treats IEEE President-Elect Michael Lightner as Barbara Oakley looks on.