A Hong Kong newspaper reported in July 1992 that a Chinese research team had for the first time verified the existence of 14 meridians in the human body. They had studied meridians, which are central to acupuncture using mechanical stimulation and stethoscopes, it said.
The paper was wrong, however. Meridians were first verified 30 years earlier through the pioneering work done by Kim Bong-han at the North Korea's National Meridian Research Institute. Dr. Chung Hyung-hwa. a resident at the Seoul National University Hospital, says that Kim's theories are a great help to him in treating patients who obviously have something wrong with them but show none of the classical symptoms of a disease.
Vibrational Medicine, by Richard Gerber, published in the United States by the Bear & Co in 1988, lauds Kim as having discovered the root of life and agrees with Dr. Chung that his ideas are a great help to practitioners of Western Medicine in making a diagnosis. Laudatory comments and a rash of publications aside, however, most of Kim's work remains buried in North Korea and is not a subject in courses at South Korean medical schools, though most doctors here are familiar with his seminal work. Kim was born in what is now South Korea and went to North Korea in 1950, after graduating from Kyongsung Imperial University, now Seoul National University, where he is said to have shown a gift for atomic physics and mathematics. Kim, manager of the institute, began his research on meridians in 1957 and his papers were respected in world medical circles in the late 1960s. Kim research was suspended in 1967, when his sponsor on the politburo was purged, and he and his work were never heard of again.
French researcher, Pierre de Vernejoul, confirmed Kim's results in 1985. He injected radioactive technium into the acupuncture points of patients and found it migrated along the classical Chinese acupuncture meridian pathways for a distance of 30 centimeters in four to six minutes.
It seems there are many hidden materials in North Korea. I think North Korea must make the materials public, even if it rejects the theory, so foreign researchers with highly advanced equipment can decide whether the Bonghan Theory is true, says Kong Dong-chui, an amateur researcher, who lately wrote a book on Kim and his theory.
Kim called the meridians "Bonghan Ducts" and said they had many more functions than the classical meridians of acupuncture. He named a fluid flowing through them "Bonghan fluid." To prove the existence of a circulatory system unknown to western medicine, he injected the radioactive isotope P32 into a rabbit's duct and charted its spread. The P32 outlined a system of fine ducts, measuring between 0.5 microns and 1.5 microns in diameter, invisible except with an electron microscope, that matched the classical acupuncture meridians. Western researchers had used stains for microscopic analysis to search for the acupuncture meridians, but the dyes destroyed the milk-white ducts and prevented the system from being detected. The fluid in the ducts has twice as much adrenalin as blood, and ten times as much at an acupuncture point. As adrenalin is one of strongest organic stimulant, Kim concluded that the ducts were high-energy passages. The fluid is also rich in amino acids and oestrogen, and has nearly twice as much hyaluronic acid as sperm. This Kim said, showed its close relationship to the reproductive system. Kim even set forth a theory on how acupuncture works, but Dr. Kim Jeng-bum, a general practitioner in Seoul, says he thinks it heals the body by revitalizing the meridians and correcting imbalances in the flow of energy.
... Yonhup