Read the classics of Chinese medicine — in the original, and in English.
Original text, pinyin and a working English translation on the same line — with the collation notes and edition history that make the difference between reading a translation and reading a text.
The classics
Huangdi Neijing · Lingshu
黃帝內經靈樞
Compiled over the same span as the Suwen; the present text was put in order in the Tang.
Nanjing
難經
Traditionally attributed to Qin Yueren (Bian Que); in its present form no earlier than the Han.
Shanghan Lun
傷寒論
Zhang Zhongjing, early 3rd century CE; the received text was reconstituted in the Song.
Shennong Bencao Jing
神農本草經
Han, attributed to the culture hero Shennong; a compiled text with no single author.
Terms that decide everything
- 邪氣化日
xié qì huà rì
A day of evil-qi transformation
The verdict for a year in which one qi got the better of another and the other answered: 乙丑 and 乙未, upper 太陰 earth, middle 少商 metal, lower 太陽 water, with heat and cold transforming and prevalence and revenge the same (所謂邪氣化日也). Six of the sixty years are so marked, and each is marked for the same reason — 勝復同, prevalence and revenge the same. The word is the chapter's harshest: 邪 is the graph for qi that is off its line, and a year so judged is one in which the calendar's own arithmetic shows the year doing something other than what its qi was charged to do. It is the 變 of 六化六變 written into a single year.
- 邪氣化度
xié qì huà dù
A measure of evil-qi transformation
Nine of the sixty years close with the verdict 邪氣化度也: 丁丑 and 丁未, for instance, run upper 太陰 earth, middle 少角 wood, lower 太陽 water, where clearing and heat prevail and revenge coincides, and the verdict follows. Each of the nine carries 勝復同 in the sentence before it, exactly as the six 邪氣化日 rows do; the two groups differ only in the word the table closes them with, 日 for the day and 度 for the measure. With the nineteen upright measures, the four verdicts between them account for forty-five of the sixty years, which is why the chapter can close its table with 勝復正化，皆有常數，不可不察: upright and evil transformations alike have their fixed numbers, and must be examined.
- 間甚
jiàn shèn
Abatement and aggravation · jian shen
The pair names what a doctor most wants to predict: not the illness but its rhythm. In chapter 22 the times of abatement and aggravation are settled by which phase the viscus meets — whether the day brings what it engenders, what overcomes it, what engenders it, or its own seat. But the chapter closes that passage with a condition that must not be skipped: none of these times can be spoken of until the pulses of the five viscera have been fixed. The calendar is useless without the wrist.
- 腹滿
fù mǎn
Abdominal fullness
A full belly, usually distended with qi. The chapter treats it as one of the few signs that cut across the conduit entries: it belongs to greater yin in its own right, appears beside heart pain in lesser yin, and explains why inversion can leave a person unaware of others.
- 上膈
shàng gé
Above the Diaphragm
The first of the chapter's two obstructions: qi is held above the diaphragm, so food and drink enter and return at once. Against it stands 下膈, the worm obstruction below the diaphragm, where food stays a full day before coming back. The pair is the chapter's whole frame, and the difference between them is both speed and seat. The treatment that follows — pressing the abscess, shallow needling around it, warming with a hot compress, then bringing the grain down with salt and bitter — is one of the few complete procedures in the book.
- 癰
yōng
Abscess
A gathering that has Ripened and is walled off: heat dammed at one place until it can no longer move on. Chapter 46 reads an abscess of the gastric duct off the neck pulse — counterflow and fullness there means heat has collected at the mouth of the stomach — and then uses an abscess of the neck to state a principle: the same name covers two grades, one still growing and one where blood has already gathered, and the grade and not the name decides whether one uses the needle or the stone.
A classic a week
One classic at a time, a chapter a week — with its collation notes. No health advice, ever.
Original scans of the base edition are available on request — click the address to copy it.
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