UMHB: Chapter 2 - Human body system (2)

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In TCM, organs inside human body are categorized into two categories: Zang and Fu. Zang means organ with structure, which are heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney. Whereas Fu means organ of empty container, which are intestine, gallbladder, stomach, colon, and bladder. Combining chest and mouth will be the sixth Fu. It is very a very common term to say five Zang six Fu. [MK: I will probably use shortcut 5 Zang 6 Fu in coming passage.]

Zang and Fu are different in terms of functionality and its meridian location. All Zang's meridian located at medial of hand and leg, and front of body. Fu's meridian usually located at lateral of hand and leg, and back of body. When a human is in danger, the basic instinct is to bend the body inward, thus all Zang's meridian are protected, although exposing Fu's meridian. Comparatively, Zang is more important than Fu.

In TCM, there is also finding each Zang's meridian and each Fu's meridian are connected. For example, lung's meridian and colon's meridian are located at medial and lateral of the hand. If we use acupuncture and can get the point accurately, lung and colon's could be just few centimeter apart.

From anatomy, lung and colon are at totally different location, and doesn't reveal any relationship at all. But from the perspective of meridian, these two organs are tightly related. These two meridians are closely impact to each other also, e.g. temperature, conductivity and liquidity. In TCM, these two organs are treated in the same system, this close relationship is called "Hu Wei Biao Li" 互为表里 [MK: I will use Close Interact Relationship to represent Hu Wei Biao Li]

In TCM development in the past of few thousand years, these two organs changes are verified to be 'synchronized'. For example, when there is flu selsema, in TCM it is normally treated as lung is Hot. (In TCM, Hot and Cold are two common symptom term.), this will usually follow by constipation symptom as well. In TCM, this kind of constipation is called 大肠燥热症, which direct translation will be "Colon Dry Hot Syndrome".

There are few pairs of Close Interact Relationship; lung and colon, heart and intestine, liver and gallbladder, spleen and stomach, kidney and bladder. These 5 pairs relationship is then related to the 5 elements, to describe the complicated relationship between Zang and Fu.

Besides five Zang and Fu meridian, there are four more main meridians. The first is at center medial of hand, called Xin Bao Jing 心包经[MK: Xin is heart, I will use pericardium meridian]. This meridian determined the blood circulation condition. The second is at center lateral of hand, called San Jiao Jing 三焦经. [MK: San is three, Jiao means focal. I will call it SanJiao meridian]. This meridian usually reflect chest and mouth conditions, and also Qi flowing conditions. The third is called Ren Mai 任脉[MK: I will use conception vessel], located in the center at the front of the body. The last one is at the center of the back of body, which is called Du Mai 督脉[I will use governor vessel]. Conception vessel and governor vessel related to all organs, is a prime meridian of human body. Pericardium meridian and SanJiao meridian is another pair of Close Interact relationship.

[To be continue]