According to《 Huangdi Neijing 》①, Bian healing, acupuncture, moxibustion and Chinese herbal medical treatment constitute four medical skills coexisting separately in the traditional Chinese medical science. Then what is Bian healing (including its skill and related instruments)? The interpretation of this in his great works 《 Shuowenjiezi 》written by Xu Shen ( 58 - 147 A.D. )② is that by Bian healing it means using stone to CI ( to prick or stab ) diseases. How to explain the word CI, therefore, becomes extremely important, for it is closely related to showing its true colours, why it has been lost for long and how we are to re-explore it in future. There is a sentence read as " CI CAO ZHI GU " ( in English, meaning " to uproot weeds to plant sereal crops " ) in his famous paper called 《 Fuguopian 》written by Master Xun ( approximately 313 - 238 B.C. )，a great thinker and educator in the Warring States Period ( 475 - 221 B.C. ). The two CIs cited above should evidently be deciphered as " getting rid of " or " removing, " which is in agreement with one of the definitions concerning the word " CI " whose meaning is " rooting out ," " wiping out " or " eradicating " as given in 《 The Chinese Lexicological Encyclopedia. 》 And later on the concept of " using stone to CI diseases " was gradually evolved into the definition of " probing with stone needle to get cured of a disease. " This kind of definition has had a worldwide impact on a lot of countries such as that in Britain, where the locally-compiled Chinese-English Dictionary has Bian interpreted as " stone needle, " and that in Japan, whose national language dictionary has the Chinese character " Bian "deciphered in Japanese as " IST BARI ," also meaning " stone needle ." The needle must have been thick if made out of stone, as lithoidal artifact is normally brittle. Now that thick stone needles were indeed employed to penetrate into the skin of any patient to get cured of his ( or her )disease in ancient China, people, however, still feel it a little bit difficult to comprehend this particular way of medical treatment, considering it as being almost pricelessly ridiculous. In our study of and textual research into historical relics and hosts of Bian-healing instruments collected from the country folk people, it has been borne out that in ancient times of China there were various Bian-healing instruments such as Bian awl, spade-shaped Bian tool, Bian slate, Bian ball, Bian anvil, ceramic ( or porcelain-made ) box for Bian healing in which hot water was filled, etc., with all of which the ancient Chinese ancestors practised their Bian-healing skill in the form of sensing, pressing, rolling, rubbing, pricking, striking, knocking, scraping, etc. Consequently, Bian-healing skill should be interpreted into " the ways that the ancient Chinese used to adopt for the purposes of medical treatment and health protection, using lithoidal artifacts."

Note:
① An oldest and earliest book dealing with the traditional Chinese medical science in the Chinese history
② A famous scholar in the study of Confucian classics and also a philologist in the Easten Han Dynasty ( 25 - 220 A.D.)