Abstract
The traditional Chinese medicine has a long history. It is comprised of theories about viscera and bowels, meridian (channels and vessels), and fluid, qi, and blood. Among these theories, the meridian theory was proposed first. Despite a better understanding of scholars in every nation about this theory and the dedication of human and material resources to related studies, there are still numerous arguments over the studies of meridian in recent years. Many researchers worldwide have attempted to solve the issues over Chinese acupuncture and meridian, but research methods are still limited to clinical observations, morphology (such as the impact of meridian phenomena and propagated sensation along channels on human tissues), and experiments (such as electrical skin resistance, voltage test, isotope tracing, detection of sound wave signals propagated along channels, and optical test). Sociologist Albert R, Barabasi A conceived that the large amounts of complicated systems in the nature can be described with the passage of networks. For instance, Watts D. J, Strogatz S H proposed that the neural system could be viewed as a network jointly formed through the passage of large amounts of neural cells to neural tissues. According to the literature review, so far, there is still no study focusing on the meridian system from this network-based perspective. Thus, the researcher attempted to establish a meridian network system. If the complicated meridian network is expressed as a network, what kind of network it is? Is it a network that has the small-world phenomenon? In this study, the network analysis perspective was applied to investigate the meridian network and empirically verify if the meridian network is a small-world network. It was discovered that Tongziliao and Sizhukong are the most important points in the entire network. By linking these two points, we could connect the entire network in the most efficient way.