A comparative Study of Tonification and Sedation in Moxibustion using Computer Method

Abstract Moxibustion is an important and widely used treatment method in traditional medical science. Two methods of moxibustion exist: tonification and sedation. Although these two methods have been used for thousands of years, there still has been no scientific comparative study of their effects on the skin until now. Thus, this paper aims to use a mathematical method to study moxibustion methods in skin tissue to demonstrate a difference of thermomechanics between tonification and sedation. In this paper, the temperature, burn damage, and thermal stress distributions in the skin tissue is analyzed and the results showed that the thermomechanical behavior of skin tissue between tonification and sedation is in accordance to ancient literatures of traditional medicine. Therefore, the comparative study of heat transfer and related thermomechanics in skin tissue during these treatments thermomechanics to tonification and sedation is great importance and helpful in exploring moxibustion instruments and their standardization contribute to the further developments of these medical applications.