Chinese medicine is thought to have started arriving in Japan around the 5^th century. There followed a period from then until the 9^th century, of rapid assimilation of knowledge from China. At this time, due to political difficulties, the contact between China and Japan ceased. From this point on the two traditions diverged with the Japanese developing many unique traits in the fields of herbs, acupuncture and moxibustion.

Over the centuries traditional medical techniques have come in and out of favour often affected by Japanese contact with the West. During the 19^th century western ideas became influential and the Japanese government, in a bid for modernisation, virtually outlawed the practice of many traditional forms of medicine. Herbal medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion could now only be practiced by western trained physicians, with the exception that blind practitioners were allowed to practice the latter two. Traditional theories were stripped from the practices of moxibustion and acupuncture, and replaced with scientific ones.

During the 1920s there was a revived interest in the classics and traditional acupuncture and moxibustion thrive today in Japan and are becoming more and more popular in the west. There are over 80,000 acupuncturists/moxibustionists in Japan today following a diverse array of traditions.

The development of acupuncture in Japan has progressed in a very different way from its Chinese cousin and this has produced a tradition with its own peculiar characteristics:

• A historically strong participation by blind practitioners has ensured that palpatory techniques are focal within the practice of Japanese acupuncture.
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  The separation of acupuncture/ moxibustion from the practice of herbal medicine due to late 19^th century legislation means there is less dependance between the disciplines and acupuncture/moxibustion stand alone with their own theories intact. This is unlike TCM where the theories of diagnosis governing acupuncture and herbal medicine are virtually the same.