Theory
The frame the prescriptions were written in, and what it means for what you can look up.
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Theory pages
Causes of disease
The three categories Chinese medicine sorts causes into – the six excesses, the seven emotions, and the causes that are neither – as the WHO terminologies define them.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
Patterns, symptoms and what you can look up
Why a symptom index for acupuncture holds things that are not symptoms.
Classical · Anyone · 4 min
Qi, blood and body fluids
What Chinese medical theory means by qi and its named kinds, blood, the jin and ye fluids, essence and spirit, as the WHO terminology defines them.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The classical texts
The books the acupuncture point system descends from, from the Mawangdui silk texts to the Zhenjiu dacheng of 1601: when each was written, by whom, and what it added.
Classical · Anyone · 8 min
The extraordinary vessels
The eight vessels outside the twelve channels, their courses as the WHO terminology defines them, and how the Nanjing and Li Shizhen describe what they do.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The five phases
Wood, fire, earth, metal and water: what the WHO terminology correlates with each, the engendering and restraining cycles, where the theory came from, and how it chooses points.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
The zang-fu organs
The five zang, six fu and extraordinary fu of Chinese medical theory, what the WHO terminology says each does, and why the theory’s Spleen is not the spleen of anatomy.
Classical · Anyone · 7 min
Yin and yang
How the Suwen uses yin and yang, the four relationships the WHO terminology names, and how the pair sorts the organs, the channels and the eight principles.
Classical · Anyone · 8 min