The topic of causality is arguably most important issue in medicine. People ask more questions about it, spend more time stuck on it, and know the least about it, than any other issue I can think of. There are three concepts that need to be discussed – causality, mechanism, and interpretation.
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The Receptivity of Blood
The Spleen manufactures Qi from the transformed essence of food and drink. In the Heart, this mixes with the extracted Qi of air and is transformed into Blood through a process known as red transformation.
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Disposition
Disposition – A natural or acquired habit or characteristic tendency in a person or thing.
The first thing I learned in school regarding herbal medicine had to do with the structure of the Shen Nong Ben Cao, the Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica. Written sometime around 150 AD, it is one of the oldest herbal medicine books in existence, and is the locus classicus for Chinese herbal medicine. The book is not organized by disease, or by complex theories. It is simply divided into three sections, according to the actions of the herbs, literally translated as Superior Class, Middle Class, and Inferior Class. They were taught to me as Destiny, Disposition, and Disease.
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About Earth
It is unclear historically when the Five Element theory arose, but it does appear in the literature by about 500 BC. Initially, the Five Element theory (the term Five Agent theory is technically more correct, but Five Element has become more popular and familiar and so I use it here) was simply a grouping. Phenomena were grouped into five categories, with no relationship between items within a group or between the groups discussed. And, as is typically Chinese, there were many variations of these groupings. In the Huang Di nei jing su wen (Huang Di’s Inner Classic, Basic Questions; see Disposition), there are 26 chapters which discuss 50 types of such groups. It is also historically unclear why in the company of groupings of three, four, and six, five survived and became the most prevalent. From an internal perspective of Chinese medicine, there is more clarity on this issue.
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Authorship in Chinese Literature
The practice of ascribing writings or teachings to mythological figures is a common Asian practice, and one worth saying something about. In my own studies of Chinese literature, I have noticed three patterns. One is the crediting of a body of knowledge to a mythological figure, which lived in some time before recorded or even actual history. The second is the crediting of a particular book to another respected person or teacher, who lived either around the same time or prior to the current author or authors. The third is the referencing of one’s own work to the teachings of another historical or even current person of high regard and stature. It appears to me that these have been a progression over time of the same tendencies.
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Nothing to Study – The Concept of an Organ in Chinese Medicine
The concept of organs in Chinese medicine can sometimes be a confusing topic for patients. In a Western culture, it can be very difficult to understand that Liver depression (this is the technical term for Liver Qi stagnation) is not going to show up on a blood test. This brings up the very important topic that in Chinese medicine, we do not study organs. In fact, there is no study of any body part in Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine does not study tissues, or cells, or organs, but instead studies relationships.
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The Kidneys Store the Jing
“The Kidneys store the Jing” is one of the stated functions of the Kidneys in Chinese medicine. The term Jing is one which has no English language equivalent. It refers to a substance which is endowed to each person, through their parents, at the moment of conception. It has both a qualitative and a quantitative component, is finite in quantity, and is stored in the conceptual space of the lower dan tian (literally “elixir field”) between the Kidneys. It gives root to the Yin and Yang, the fundamental substrates out of which all bodily substances and processes arise.
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Menopause is not a Disease
The word “shen” means spirit in Chinese medicine. There is a global concept of Shen which reflects the quality of a person’s vitality and life force. Each organ also houses a particular Shen, such as the “zhi”, or will, for the Kidneys, and the “shen”, or spirit, for the Heart. Heart Shen is physiologically an accumulation of Blood (and therefore Qi) and Jing in the Heart. It reflects the expression of one’s will, manifesting as wisdom. [Read more…]
Honesty – The Virtue of the Spleen
The Spleen is the organ whose Chinese function is most difficult to understand from a Western biomedical perspective. Unlike all of the other organs, the Chinese concept of the Spleen has very little to do with the anatomical spleen (see also Nothing to Study – The Concept of an Organ in Chinese Medicine). Some of its physical functions related to transformation can be correlated with the pancreas and the thyroid, but there is no one organ which fully describes the Spleen organ system.
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Benevolence – The Virtue of the Liver
Each of the five Chinese organs, or Zang, has associated with it a corresponding emotion. This emotion is the quality of energy governed by the respective organ, experienced on a human level. In health this energy flows freely, but in imbalance it becomes stagnant, expressing itself as a recurring emotion. Because the Liver governs the smooth flow of emotion, it plays a role in the stagnation of any of the five emotions. Like the other organs though, it has resonance with a specific quality of energy. The emotion of the Liver is anger.
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