The third branch of the left arteriordescending coronay artery was ligated at itsroot to produce acute cardiac infarction in20 experiment adult dogs.Fifteen minutesafter the ligation

electric acupuncture wasapplied to both Neiguan points of the punc-turing group

each for ten minutes five timesat 30 minutes intervals.Dogs’ hearts of thesetwo groups were then taken out and cardiacmuscles prepared for pathological examina-tion.Dogs of both the puncturing group andcontrolled group were then killed 3 hours 35minutes after occulusion and cardiac musc-les prepared for pathological examination.N-BT

acid fuschin methyl green and H.E.stains were applied to observe the size andseverity of necrosis of myocardium.The re-sults were:percentage of ratio of the area ofinfarct to the whole ventricle in cross section

the percentage of the ratio of weight of theinfarct zone to that of both ventricles andthe percentage of the ratio of weight of theinfarct zone to that of the left ventriclewere markedly less than those of the con-trolled group.The statistical difference weresignificant with P values 0.01

0.001

0.001respectively.The severity of necrosis of themyocardium in the puncturing group is mil-der than that of the controlled group.Theexperiment showed that acupuncture couldreduce the extent of infarct zone and les-sened

to a certain degree

the severity of myo-cardiac necrosis.