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The Body Electric
matching the input side of the two-way system we'd charted in amphibi-
ans, showed a flow into the central nervous system. Each point was
positive compared to its environs, and each one had a field surrounding it,
with its own characteristic shape. We even found a fifteen-minute rhythm
in the current strength at the points, superimposed on the circadian
("about a day") rhythm we'd found a decade earlier in the overall DC
system. It was obvious by then that at least the major parts of the
acupuncture charts had, as the jargon goes, "an objective basis in reality."
ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY MAPS OF SKIN AT ACUPUNCTURE
POINTS
Maria, Joe Spadaro, and I began a more sophisticated series of tests.
We planned to record from six major points along one meridian as a
needle was inserted into the outermost point. If the DC theory was
valid, a change in potential should travel from point to point along the
line. However, just as we were entering this second phase, the NIH
canceled our grant, even though we'd published four papers in a year.
Supposedly it had lost interest in acupuncture, at least in the kind of
basic research we were doing on it. Even so, I was fairly satisfied. The
input system worked as I'd predicted. The other major question re-
mained: What structure carried the current so as not to interfere with
the nerve impulses?
Of course, I've given away the answer in previous chapters. The peri-
neural cells appear to carry the current. In the early 1970s, however, we
only suspected this. The evidence came unexpectedly by cross-fertiliza-
rion from an unrelated project.
One of the main problems of medical research is finding a suitable
"animal model" for human diseases. The study of unmended fractures is