Wu Ling — The Five Ridges Bleeding Field
Star五嶺 (Wǔ Lǐng)
Master Tung Ching Chang, Tung's Extraordinary Points — bleeding technique (刺絡).
Points
-
The whole twenty-five-location field
Treatment Principle
Clear heat and resolve toxicity from the interior by releasing stagnant blood from the vessels of the back.
Indications
Method
Expose the back and inspect the field under good light for small dark, raised or spidery vessels. Prick only those that show a sign, using a sterile single-use three-edged or lancet needle, then apply cups over the pricked sites and leave for five to ten minutes. Not all twenty-five locations are treated at any one session — typically three to eight.
⚠ Cautions
Not for use in pregnancy, in patients with bleeding disorders or on anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication, in severe anaemia, in the frail or elderly with poor reserves, or over broken or infected skin. Strict clean technique and single-use sharps handling are mandatory, with a sharps bin at the couch. Explain the marks the cups will leave, which last several days. Where local regulation restricts bleeding techniques, follow it.
About
Wu Ling is not a point but a region — five rows spanning the thoracic back, twenty-five locations in all — searched for visible vascular change rather than measured out. It is the largest and most-used bleeding field in the Tung system.
Rationale
Tung regarded stagnant blood in the superficial vessels of the back as both a sign and a cause of chronic interior heat, and bleeding it as the most direct way to clear that heat. The technique's breadth of indication follows from that single idea rather than from any point-by-point specificity — which is also why the practitioner selects by what the skin shows rather than by a formula.
Clinical Notes
The visible sign is the whole method. A back with nothing to see is a back not to bleed. Where signs are present, patients often report an immediate lightening; the effect on chronic skin disease and hypertension builds over several sessions spaced a week or more apart.
Sources
- Tung Ching Chang. Tung's Acupuncture (董氏鍼灸正經奇穴學). Taipei, 1973.
- Young, Wei-Chieh. Lectures on Tung's Acupuncture: Points Study. Blue Poppy Press.
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