sb. [f. L. acū with a needle + PUNCTURE.] Pricking with a needle; a prick so made. spec. The insertion of needles into the living tissues for remedial purposes.
1684. trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., I. 33. They have a two-fold method of Cure [in gout] … Acupuncture, and burning with their Moxa.
1801. E. Darwin, Zoonomia, III. 254. In cases of strangulated hernia, could acupuncture … be used with safety?
1872. Thomas, Dis. Women, 291. Acupuncture … may be performed by an ordinary three-sided surgical needle.
1875. M. Collins, Th. in my Garden (1880), II. vi. 224. The bees this year are … stinging with unusual sharpness of acupuncture.
