Characteristics of reactive electropermeable points on the auricles of coronary heart disease patients.

In oriental medicine there is a hypothesis related to acupuncture that the auricle is a projection of the functional anatomy of the whole human body. In this study reactive electropermeable points (REPP), that is, points on the skin with low electrical resistance, on the auricle were measured on patients with coronary heart disease using a neurometer LC-M. Our findings correlated positively with the particular points--heart I (shin) and heart II (shinzo)*--named by the Chinese group as being related to the functional anatomy of the heart. The incidence of positive REPP test results at the shin and shinzo points for subjects with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were extremely high, and positive test results for patients with old myocardial infarction (OMI) and angina pectoris (AP) were also significant. There was no significant difference in the incidence rates of REPP at the shin and shinzo points between the OMI and AP groups. High incidence of positive REPP test results at the lung and heart III (shinyu) points occurred only in the AMI group, and this was significantly high when compared with the control group.