Inconsistency in numbering of bladder meridian points?

On any of the bladder point pages there is a row of links at the bottom of the point information - All Meridians • Basic Information • Graphic • Locations Chart • Functions Chart. If you follow the "Basic Information" link at the bottom it will take you to a page with helpful information pertaining to the bladder meridian. The answer to your question is the last point on that page.

I'm not entirely certain of the exact reasoning, certainly the inner line starting with UB 11 and going down to UB 40 has many physical relationships whereas the outer line is more commonly used for psychological issues (generally speaking). This may have been part of the reasoning for the new numbering scheme. As I believe the change came around the same time as the Communist "reinvention" of "Traditional" Chinese Medicine (TCM) it probably has more to do with the fact that people used to use the names more than the numbers and somehow someone felt changing the numbers was more important to illustrate the different usages of the points whereas before the names took care of these issues. Example knowing Lung Shu and Po Door (instead of UB 11 and UB 42) would tell you the "lung shu" point where shu points are on the inner bladder line and the lung emotional counterpoint "po door" (po roughly "soul" is stored in the lungs - door where you can influence this energy) would let you know it's the outer line... Either way the older numbering scheme hasn't been used in quite some time and all standard exams (in the west at least) use the numbering scheme as it is depicted on our site.

I am so glad to have found this post! I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person banging my head on the wall trying to figure out why some charts/books list "Hun Men" acupoint as BL-47 and others list it as BL-42.

In fact, while teaching self-help acupressure in my tai chi school, this issue came up. My students have laminated charts listing the point as 42, while my source ("Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion" standard textbook) lists it as 47. After more research, I found lots of charts/books with these 2 distinct "versions."

Let&#39s keep researching this. I hope we can find out more info about WHEN this "re-numbering" started, and WHY.

Have a great day,

L. Wollering