History of Animal Acupuncture

It is very difficult to determine the exact date or period of the origin of acupuncture practices on animals. The earliest record of veterinary acupuncture was around three thousand years ago in India. Elephants were treated then with some sort of a similar method.

Shun Yang (480 BC) of China was considered to be the father of Veterinary medicine.

With the growing popularity of acupuncture in human medicine since the 1970s, veterinary acupuncture has also moved closer to mainstream practices. Major veterinary texts include chapters on acupuncture now.

In fact throughout the world acupuncture has gained popularity and has become a business to reckon with. Statistics show around three million veterinary doctors, pharmacists, medical practitioners and assistants worldwide are fully trained in acupuncture.

Out of this around 150,000 of them are veterinarians and 700,000 are paraveterinary assistants. The main professional society for veterinary acupuncturists in the United States is the IVAS which has a website and also publishes journals and newsletters.

As the human acupuncture practice the veterinary acupuncture also evolved from the Traditional Chinese Medicine. According to TCM, humans and animals are small parts of the infinite universe.

Everyone is governed by the laws which govern the various living and non living things in the universe. Their basic concept states that whether it is the animal or the human, if the laws of nature are followed, good health automatically follows.