Cases illustrative of the remedial effects of acupuncturation.

The first original study of acupuncture published in North America, and one of the earliest American publications on the alleviation of pain. Franklin Bache, great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was the first American to perform original research on acupuncture. 

"As assistant physician at the state penitentiary in Philadelphia, Bache determined in 1825 to test acupuncture on the prisoners whom he was called upon to serve. With the aid of a colleague, he used the needles to treat 12 different prisoners who were suffering from highly painful afflictions: three with muscular rheumatism, four with 'chronic pains,' three with neuralgia, and two with ophthalmia. He also used acupuncture among the prisoners in relieving several lesser pains, including a headache accompanying bilious fever, the head pain of an epileptic, an elastic tumor near the elbow joint, and a dull pain caused by pulmonic inflammation.

"Bache reported varying successes. In summarizing 17 subsequent cases, some of which were not among the prisoners, he noted that seven "were completely cured, seven considerably relieved, and in the remaining three cases, the remedy produced no effect" (Cassedy, "Early uses of acupuncture in the United States, with an addendum (1826) by Franklin Bache, M.D.," Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 50 [1974] 892-906).