This is not a teaser with the useful parts cut out. It is the whole of Module 1, three point cards, six glossary terms with pinyin, and five self-check questions. Judge the quality yourself before spending anything.
The mental model everything else is built on. Read this first — it is what makes the vocabulary stop sounding like nonsense.
Yin and Yang are not good versus evil, and not two separate things. They are two complementary aspects of one phenomenon. Yin is the cooler, quieter, interior, resting, material side; Yang is the warmer, more active, exterior, moving, functional side.
Health in this model is their relative balance — and, more importantly, their ability to keep turning into one another. Every other TCM concept (cold and heat, excess and deficiency, interior and exterior) is built on this pair.
阴阳不是"好与坏"，也不是两个彼此独立的东西，而是同一事物相互对待、相互转化的两个方面。阴偏于寒凉、安静、内在、收藏、物质；阳偏于温热、活动、外在、升发、功能。
传统理论认为，健康在于二者的相对平衡，更在于它们能正常地互相转化。中医里的寒热、虚实、表里等一切概念，都建立在这一对关系之上。
"Vital energy" is a misleading translation. In TCM theory Qi is closer to functional activity — the capacity to transform, move, warm, hold and protect. It is not a substance measured like a vitamin, and no physical correlate has been identified.
Classical texts distinguish functional types: Yuan Qi (source), Zong Qi (gathering, tied to breath and the heart), Ying Qi (nutritive, moving with Blood) and Wei Qi (defensive, at the surface). Read it as a working model, not a measurable thing.
"生命能量"是个容易误导的译法。在中医理论中，气更接近"功能活动"——转化、推动、温煦、固摄、防御的能力，而不是一种能像维生素那样被测量的物质，目前也没有找到对应的实体。
经典文献区分出元气、宗气、营气、卫气等功能类型。应把它理解为一种工作模型，而不是可测量的东西。
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water are five patterns of change, not five kinds of matter. Each is tied to a direction of movement (Wood expands, Metal contracts, Water descends and stores, Fire rises, Earth stabilises the centre), plus an organ pair, a season, a colour, an emotion and a flavour.
Practitioners reason with two relations — generating (Wood feeds Fire) and controlling (Water controls Fire). It is a relational framework for thinking about how systems influence each other.
木火土金水是五种"变化方式"，不是五种物质。每一行对应一种运动趋向（木升发、金收敛、水下行而藏、火炎上、土居中运化），并对应一对脏腑、一个季节、一种颜色、一种情志、一种味道。
中医用"相生"（木生火）与"相克"（水克火）来推理系统之间如何互相影响。它是一个用来思考系统关系的关系型框架。
The Zang are not the anatomical organs of modern medicine. Each Zang — Heart, Liver, Spleen, Lung, Kidney, plus Pericardium — names a functional system that also carries a mental-emotional aspect, a tissue, a sense organ, a fluid and a season.
The Fu (Gallbladder, Stomach, Small Intestine, Large Intestine, Bladder, San Jiao) are described as hollow and associated with receiving, transforming and transmitting. TCM "Kidney", for instance, covers part of what modern medicine assigns to adrenal, endocrine, reproductive and skeletal function. Reading these words as anatomy is the single most common misunderstanding of TCM.
中医的"脏"并不等同于现代医学的解剖器官。每一个脏——心、肝、脾、肺、肾，加心包——命名的是一套功能系统，同时带有情志、组织、官窍、体液与季节的对应。
六腑（胆、胃、小肠、大肠、膀胱、三焦）被描述为"中空"，与受纳、传化、排泄相关。例如中医的"肾"，覆盖了现代医学中肾上腺、内分泌、生殖与骨骼的部分功能。把脏腑当解剖器官来读，是理解中医最常见的误区。
Xue (Blood) and Jin Ye (fluids) are described as the material, nourishing side of the body, paired with Qi as the moving, warming side. The phrasing is almost always relational: "Qi moves Blood, Blood carries Qi."
Thin fluids are said to moisten skin and muscle; thicker fluids nourish joints, marrow and the sense organs. In TCM reasoning these categories explain dryness, swelling and poor circulation patterns — again as a model, not as laboratory findings.
血与津液被描述为身体"物质、滋养"的一面，与"气"的推动、温煦一面相对。经典中的表述几乎总是关系式的："气行血，血载气"。
清稀的津液润养肌肤肌肉，稠厚的液则滋养关节、骨髓与官窍。中医用这些范畴来解释干燥、肿胀、运行不畅等证候——同样是一种模型，而非实验室发现。
Essence is the constitutional, store-able, slow-changing aspect — associated with the Kidney system, growth, reproduction and ageing. Roughly "what you were born with, plus what you have drawn from food and rest".
It is the part of the model that most resembles a reserve, which is why the classical literature on longevity is full of warnings about dissipating it.
精是本质的、可储藏、变化缓慢的一面——与肾系、生长、生殖、衰老相关。大致相当于"先天所禀，加上后天从饮食与休息中所得"。
在这个模型里，它最接近"储备"的概念，因此经典中关于养生的论述里充满"勿妄耗"的告诫。
Shen is consciousness, awareness and emotional presence, associated above all with the Heart system. In the four examinations a practitioner reads Shen in the eyes and the overall bearing.
It is said to be the single most prognostic sign — which is worth noting, because "this person looks well" is something any experienced clinician recognises, in any tradition.
神是神志、意识与精神状态，首先与心系相关。四诊中望神主要看目光与整体气度。
它被认为是判断预后最重要的征象——这一点值得注意，因为"这个人看起来精神尚好"是任何传统的资深医者都熟悉的判断。
Wei Qi is described as circulating at the surface, between skin and muscle, resisting external influences. Ying Qi is described as moving with the Blood and nourishing internally. They are two functions of one model, not two substances.
The nearest modern analogue people reach for is immune surveillance, but the mapping is loose and should be treated as a metaphor rather than an equivalence.
卫气分布于体表、皮肤与肌肉之间，被认为能抗御外邪；营气与血同行偏于内养。它们是同一个模型的两项功能，不是两种物质。
人们常拿"免疫监视"来类比卫气，但这种对应是松散的，宜作比喻而非等同。
Qi is described as having four directions of movement: rising, descending, exiting and entering. Health is said to depend on these four keeping their proper direction; illness is described as them going the wrong way.
This is the origin of phrases like "stomach Qi rebelling upward" for nausea, or "sinking Qi" for prolapse. It is a directional vocabulary, and much of TCM symptom language depends on it.
气被描述为有四个运动方向：升、降、出、入。传统认为健康取决于四者方向各得其常，而疾病则被描述为方向失常。
这正是"胃气上逆"（形容恶心）、"中气下陷"（形容下垂）这类说法的来源。它是一套方向性的词汇，中医症状语言很大一部分依赖于此。
Wind, Cold, Summer-heat, Damp, Dryness and Fire are six descriptions of how external conditions are said to interact with the body. Wind is the most abstract: it describes signs that move around or come on suddenly.
Read them as descriptions of patterns, not as weather-based causes in a modern sense. Damp, for instance, describes heaviness and sluggishness — a set of features, not humidity itself.
风、寒、暑、湿、燥、火是六种描述外界条件如何与身体相互作用的说法。其中"风"最抽象，用于描述游走不定或突然出现的一类征象。
应把它们读作证候的描述语言，而不是现代意义上的气象致病原因。例如"湿"，描述的是沉重、黏滞的一组特征，而不是湿度本身。
Joy, anger, worry, pensiveness, grief, fear and fright are described as affecting the organ systems — anger the Liver, pensiveness the Spleen, fear the Kidney, and so on.
This is one of the parts of TCM that modern readers find easiest to take seriously, because the observation that emotional states affect physical health is not controversial. What is specific to TCM is the mapping and the vocabulary.
喜、怒、忧、思、悲、恐、惊被描述为会影响脏腑系统——怒伤肝、思伤脾、恐伤肾等。
这是现代读者最容易接受的部分之一，因为"情绪影响身体"本身并无争议。中医的特殊之处在于它的对应关系与术语体系。
A Western diagnosis names a disease; a TCM pattern (证) names a configuration of signs in one person at one time. Two patients with the same disease may be given different patterns; one patient with different diseases may share a pattern.
This is why TCM and modern medicine are not simply rival answers to the same question. They are answering different questions with different instruments.
西医的诊断给出的是"病名"；中医的"证"给出的是某个人在某一时刻的一组征象配置。同为一种病，两人可能辨为不同的证；不同的病，也可能共有同一个证。
这就是为什么中医与现代医学并不只是"对同一问题的两个竞争答案"——它们用不同的工具回答不同的问题。
A classical scheme in which each of the twelve primary meridians is assigned a two-hour period of the day, with Qi said to be most active in that meridian at that time.
It is used as a memory aid and as a framework for some classical timing rules. It should not be read as a claims about measurable physiology; the value is organisational.
一种经典的时间配属方案：十二条正经各对应一日中的两个时辰，认为此时经气在该经最盛。
它被用作记忆工具，也是一部分经典择时法则的框架。不应把它读作关于可测量生理学的结论；它的价值在于组织信息。
The San Jiao is the only Fu with no anatomical counterpart at all. Classical texts describe it as dividing the torso into upper, middle and lower regions for reasoning about the movement of Qi and fluids.
Its lack of physical basis is not hidden by the tradition — it is a well-known topic in TCM theory. It is a useful example of how the system is willing to include openly abstract categories.
三焦是六腑中唯一完全没有解剖器官对应者。经典把它作为把躯干分为上、中、下三段的划分，用于推理气与水的运行。
传统本身并不隐讳它缺少实体对应——这在中医理论中是常被讨论的题目。它很好地说明了这个体系愿意容纳明显抽象的范畴。
The single biggest obstacle for learners is terminology. The same Chinese word is translated differently by different authors: 气 appears as qi, chi and "vital energy"; 脾 as spleen, "the spleen system" and "the digestive centre".
A second obstacle is that many terms are borrowed words — "liver" and "spleen" in TCM are not the organs. Our recommendation: always learn the Chinese character with the English term, and treat English translations as labels rather than definitions.
学习者最大的障碍是术语。同一个中文词被不同作者译得五花八门：气有 qi、chi、"vital energy" 等写法；脾有 spleen、"the spleen system"、"the digestive centre" 等译法。
第二个障碍是许多词是"借用词"——中医的"肝""脾"并不是那些器官。我们的建议是：学英文术语时永远连汉字一起记，并把英文译名当作标签，而不是定义。
Being honest about the evidence is part of understanding TCM. The picture is uneven: it is not "all disproven", and it is not "all proven".
Some areas have a substantial trial literature with mixed results — acupuncture for chronic pain and for chemotherapy-related nausea are the two most studied. Others have very little. Risk of bias, blinding difficulties and publication bias are recurring problems in the field, and a single positive trial is not enough to change practice in any branch of medicine.
如实看待证据，是理解中医的一部分。实际情况并不均匀：既不是"全被推翻"，也不是"全部证实"。
有些领域已有相当数量的试验而结果不一——针灸用于慢性疼痛、以及用于化疗相关恶心，是研究最多的两项。另一些领域则证据极少。偏倚风险、盲法困难与发表偏倚是该领域反复出现的问题；在医学的任何分支里，单个阳性试验都不足以改变临床实践。
In 2008 the WHO published Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region, giving internationally agreed locations for 361 points. It is the reason a practitioner in Germany and one in Korea can point to the same spot and mean the same thing.
This matters for more than tidiness: it is the precondition for comparing research results across countries.
2008 年世界卫生组织发布《标准针灸穴名定位（西太平洋地区）》，为 361 个腧穴给出国际一致的定位。正因为如此，德国与韩国的执业者指向同一点时说的才是同一件事。
这不仅是整齐与否的问题：它是跨国比较研究结果的前提。
There is no single global rule. In the United States most states license acupuncturists and the title is protected; national bodies administer examinations. In Australia, practitioners are registered under a national scheme. In the United Kingdom there is no single statutory regulator, and several voluntary registers operate.
The practical consequence: before booking, check your local health authority for how to verify credentials, and ask about needle hygiene, single-use needles and what training the practitioner holds.
全球没有统一规则。美国多数州对针灸师实行执照管理，该称谓受法律保护；澳大利亚将其纳入全国注册体系；英国没有单一法定监管机构，而是由数个自愿注册机构运作。
实际含义是：就诊前请查阅当地卫生主管部门如何核验资质，并询问针具卫生、是否使用一次性针具，以及执业者的受训背景。
A first consultation typically takes longer than follow-ups. Expect a long history — sleep, appetite, digestion, temperature preference, pain, emotions, menstrual history — plus tongue and pulse examination.
Then treatment may include acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, tuina, or a herbal prescription to take home. You should leave knowing what was found, what was given, and when to come back. If a practitioner tells you to stop taking prescribed medicine, that is a serious warning sign — get a second opinion.
初诊通常比复诊时间长。会有一次很长的问诊——睡眠、饮食、消化、寒热喜恶、疼痛、情志、月经史——加上舌诊与脉诊。
随后治疗可能包括针刺、艾灸、拔罐、推拿，或带回家服用的中药。离开时你应当知道自己被辨为什么、给了什么、何时复诊。如果执业者让你停用正在服用的处方药，这是严重的警示信号——请另找医生评估。
Classically, herbs were boiled together and the liquid drunk. Most overseas clinics now use concentrated granules dissolved in hot water, or pills, because they are portable, standardised and taste far more tolerable.
Convenience has a cost: the practitioner has less control over exactly what is in the mixture, and powders are easier to adulterate. Reputable suppliers test for heavy metals and pesticides — it is reasonable to ask.
经典做法是数味药同煎、服用煎液。海外多数诊所现在改用热水冲服的浓缩颗粒或丸剂，因为便于携带、标准化程度高，而且味道远为可口。
便利也有代价：从业者对配比的控制变弱，而粉剂更易掺伪。正规供应商会做重金属与农残检测——询问这一点是合理的。
This is the part of TCM with the highest stakes and the least public awareness. Herbs are pharmacologically active; some interact with prescription medicines in ways that are documented and clinically significant.
Examples that appear repeatedly in the literature include ginseng, dong quai, goji and salvia with anticoagulants; licorice with blood-pressure and diuretic medicines; hawthorn with cardiac medicines; coptis (berberine) across a broad range.
Common sense rule: tell both your physician and your TCM practitioner everything you take, including supplements.
这是中医里安全权重最高、而公众意识最低的部分。中药具有药理活性，其中一些与处方药的相互作用有明确记载且具有临床意义。
文献中反复出现的例子包括：人参、当归、枸杞、丹参与抗凝药；甘草与降压药、利尿剂；山楂与心脏药物；黄连（小檗碱）的作用范围很广。
一条常识性做法：把你服用的所有东西——包括保健品——同时告知你的医生与中医师。
Classical literature names a set of points and herbs described as contraindicated or to be used with caution during pregnancy — SP6, LI4, GB21, BL60 and CV4 among points; dong quai, safflower, motherwort and coix among herbs.
We list these as part of describing the tradition. The practical point is simpler: pregnancy is a situation where any treatment decision belongs with a licensed practitioner who knows your obstetric history, and where self-treatment is not appropriate.
经典文献列出了一批孕期禁用或慎用的腧穴与药物——腧穴如 SP6、LI4、GB21、BL60、CV4；药物如当归、红花、益母草、薏苡仁。
我们列出这些，是作为描述这一传统的内容。实际的做法更简单：孕期任何治疗决定都应由了解你产科史的持牌执业者来做，自行处理并不合适。
TCM is practised today in more than 180 countries and regions, with tens of thousands of clinics outside China. Acupuncture arrived in Europe and North America well before the herbal tradition did, carried by diplomats, émigré practitioners and, later, by research interest.
The result is a patchwork: in one country acupuncture sits inside hospitals and insurance schemes, in another it is a spa service. That patchwork is why this knowledge base gives the tradition rather than a set of instructions — the local rules matter more than any general advice.
如今中医在 180 多个国家和地区被实践，中国境外有数万家诊所。针灸传入欧美远早于中药，早期由外交人员、移民执业者带动，后来则与科研兴趣有关。
结果是一幅拼图：在一个国家里针灸进入医院与保险体系，在另一个国家里它只是水疗服务的一部分。正因为如此，这个知识库提供的是传统本身而不是一套操作指南——当地规则比任何通用建议都重要。
Five questions cut through most marketing: What exactly is being claimed — a feeling, a mechanism, or a cure? Who says so, and do they sell the thing they are praising? Is there a source you can open, or only a testimonial? Does the claim involve a diagnosis of your condition? Are they promising a result that no treatment can guarantee?
Being sceptical about claims is not the same as dismissing a tradition. It is how you tell a careful practitioner from a salesperson.
五个问题能穿透大部分宣传：他到底在声明什么——一种感受、一个机制，还是"治愈"？是谁说的，他是否在卖他夸的那个东西？有没有你能打开核对的来源，还是只有"好评"？这个声明是否包含对你病情的诊断？他是否承诺了任何治疗都无法保证的结果？
对说法保持怀疑，不等于否定整个传统。这只是区分"谨慎的执业者"与"推销者"的方法。
Classical and modern Chinese literature describes people as falling into broad constitutional types: the balanced type, and types described as qi-deficient, yang-deficient, yin-deficient, phlegm-damp, damp-heat, blood-stasis, qi-stagnant and allergic-constitution. The most widely used modern scheme in China lists nine such types.
The useful part of the idea is that the same complaint can behave differently in different bodies, which is why two people with the same symptom may be discussed quite differently. The caution matters just as much: a constitutional type is a description of tendency, not a diagnosis, and it should not be used on its own to decide what to do.
中医文献把人分为若干体质类型：平和质，以及气虚质、阳虚质、阴虚质、痰湿质、湿热质、血瘀质、气郁质、特禀质。目前国内使用最广的现代分类共列九种。
这一说法的价值在于：同一个主诉在不同体质的人身上表现可能不同，因此同样症状的两个人，讨论方式可能差别很大。提醒同样重要：体质只是对倾向的描述，不是诊断，不能单凭体质决定怎么做。
Jin Ye is the collective term for the body's normal fluids. Classical writing divides them into thinner fluids said to moisten skin and muscle, and thicker fluids said to nourish joints, marrow and the sense organs.
Their movement is described as a loop: intake and transformation by the Spleen and Stomach, distribution by the Lung, transport by the Spleen, and excretion through the Kidney and Bladder, with the San Jiao named as the pathway that connects them. Where the loop is said to fail, the result is described as dryness, swelling or phlegm. Read this as a working model of fluid handling, not as a description of kidney physiology.
津液是体内各种正常水液的总称。古籍把清稀者称津，润养肌肤肌肉；稠厚者称液，滋养关节、骨髓与官窍。
其运行被描述为一个循环：脾胃受纳运化，肺主宣发肃降，脾主转输，肾与膀胱主排泄，三焦被认为是贯通上下的通道。循环失常，则表现为燥、肿或痰。这是水液运行的一套工作模型，不是现代肾脏生理的描述。
The five Zang are not treated as independent units. Classical reasoning links them in two ways: through the generating and controlling relations of the five phases, and through direct physiological pairings such as Heart and Lung jointly governing qi and Blood, or Liver and Spleen jointly affecting digestion.
A practical consequence is that a complaint in one system is often discussed in terms of another. Irritable bowel-type presentations, for instance, are described as Liver overacting on the Spleen. This is why a TCM consultation so often ranges across symptoms that appear unrelated to the original complaint.
中医不把五脏当作各自独立的单位。传统推理有两条联系路径：五行相生相克的关系，以及直接的生理配对，如心肺共主气血、肝脾共同影响消化。
一个实际后果是：某一系统的问题常被用另一个系统来解释。例如易激类肠道表现，被描述为肝木乘脾。这也是中医问诊常会延伸到看似无关症状的原因。
Two concepts that classical texts describe extensively and define inconsistently. The San Jiao has a function list - it is the passage for fluids and the route by which yuan qi is distributed - but no agreed anatomical seat. Ming Men, the Gate of Life, is placed between the kidneys by most texts and described as the source of original yang; whether it is a separate organ or a function of the Kidney is argued in the literature.
Later authors did not settle the question, they elaborated it. Ming dynasty writing made Ming Men central to a whole school of tonifying practice, which is why the term is still common in clinical conversation even though it maps onto nothing in modern anatomy.
How to read this: the disagreement is not a defect to be corrected. It is what a tradition working from observation and long use, rather than from dissection, looks like. Knowing that a term is contested is more useful than being told a tidy answer.
有两个概念，古籍论述很多，定义却并不统一。三焦有一份功能清单——是水液通行的道路，也是元气布散的途径——但没有公认的解剖位置。命门则被多数文献定在两肾之间，被描述为元阳之本；它究竟是一个独立脏器，还是肾的功能之一，文献中一直有争论。
后世医家并没有解决这个问题，而是把它展开了。明代医著把命门放到补益法体系的核心，这也是它至今仍常出现在临床话语中，却对应不上任何现代解剖结构的原因。
怎么读这类内容：这种分歧不是一个待修正的缺陷，而是一门依靠观察与长期使用、而非依靠解剖建立的传统本来的样子。知道一个术语有争议，比被告知一个整齐的答案更有用。
Classical medicine treats time as a variable rather than a background. The best-known scheme assigns each of the twelve channels a two-hour period across the day, so that a symptom recurring at a fixed hour is read against the channel associated with it.
There are further layers: seasonal advice about rest and activity, and the observation that some patterns are described as worse at particular times of day. The reasoning is cyclical and astronomical in origin, tied to the sun and the seasons rather than to clock time as an abstract quantity.
What to keep and what to drop: as a description of how a tradition organised its observations, it is coherent and worth knowing. As a way to decide what is wrong with you from the hour you woke up, it does not hold. Someone waking at the same time every night in distress should be assessed medically - that pattern has ordinary medical explanations and deserves to be checked.
传统医学把时间当作变量，而不是背景。最著名的一套方案把十二经脉各对应一天中的两个小时，因此固定在某个时辰反复出现的症状，会被放在对应的经脉上考量。
还有更外层的结构：依季节调整作息与活动，以及「某些证候在特定时段加重」这类记载。这套推演的来源是循环与天象，与太阳和季节绑定，而不是把钟表时间当作抽象量。
哪些该留、哪些该放：作为「一门传统如何组织它的观察」的描述，它是自洽的，也值得了解；但要据此从「几点醒来」推断自己哪里出了问题，就不成立了。若有人每晚固定时间醒来且明显不适，应当就医——这类表现有寻常的医学解释，值得去查。
Constitution and pattern are different scales of description, and mixing them up causes a lot of confusion. Constitution is the longer-term tendency a person carries - how they generally react, what they tolerate, what they drift towards. A pattern is a current state, which can change in days.
The relationship is usually described as one of predisposition: a given constitution makes certain patterns more likely, without determining them. Two people with the same constitution can be in different patterns, and the same pattern looks different in different constitutions - which changes how it is approached.
This is also why a questionnaire that sorts you into one of a fixed number of body types is not the same thing as a diagnosis. Naming a tendency is describing a background. It does not tell you what is happening now, and it is not a reason to start taking anything.
体质与证候是两个不同尺度的描述，混为一谈会造成很多混乱。体质是人长期带有的倾向——通常如何反应、能耐受什么、容易偏向哪边。证候则是当下的状态，可以在几天内变化。
两者的关系通常被描述为「易感」：某种体质使某些证候更容易出现，但并不决定它一定出现。体质相同的人可以处在不同证候中；而同一种证候在不同体质上表现也不同——这会改变处理方式。
这也是为什么「把你归入若干固定类型之一」的问卷，与诊断不是一回事。给倾向命名，是在描述背景；它既不说明你现在正在发生什么，也不能作为开始服用任何东西的理由。
Classical texts insist that deciding what to treat first is itself a clinical judgement, and one of the harder ones. Root and branch describe cause and manifestation; acute and chronic describe urgency. The four combinations give four different orders of work.
The rule that comes out of it is stated plainly in the tradition: in sudden, severe situations address the branch first, and in slow, long-standing ones address the root. The reason is not philosophical. If someone is in acute distress, the acute problem is what threatens them now, whatever its origin.
This principle has a direct modern reading. Sudden severe chest pain, difficulty breathing, weakness on one side of the body, or heavy bleeding are branch emergencies. Nothing about long-term constitutional work changes that, and no constitutional theory should be allowed to delay emergency care.
古籍坚持认为，先处理什么是临床判断本身，而且是较难的判断之一。标本说的是本因与表象，缓急说的是紧迫程度。四个组合给出四种不同的先后次序。
由此得出的规则，传统里说得很直白：卒病、急症先治其标，久病、缓症治其本。理由并不是玄学。一个人正处在急性痛苦中，无论根源是什么，眼下威胁他的就是那个急的问题。
这条原则有一个直接的现代读法：突发剧烈胸痛、呼吸困难、身体一侧无力、或大量出血，都属于「标」的急症。任何长期的调养计划都不改变这一点，也不应让任何理论延误急诊。
The 'seven feelings' (qi qing) — more accurately translated as seven kinds of combination — is the classical vocabulary for how two herbs behave when used together. The list comes from the preface of the Shennong Bencao Jing (Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica, compiled roughly in the Han dynasty), which names them: single action (dan xing), mutual reinforcement (xiang xu), mutual assistance (xiang shi), mutual restraint (xiang wei), mutual aversion (xiang wu), mutual antagonism (xiang fan), and mutual counteraction (xiang sha).
The categories describe relationships, not ingredients. Two herbs with similar actions used together may reinforce each other (xiang xu); a secondary herb may assist the action of a chief herb (xiang shi); the toxicity of one may be held in check by another (xiang wei and xiang sha, which later writers read as a positive pairing); while some pairings were recorded as diminishing each other (xiang wu) or as conflicting outright (xiang fan). The last category is the root of the later 'eighteen incompatibilities and nineteen fears' (shi ba fan, shi jiu wei) lists found in later formulary literature, which tabulate pairs traditionally considered incompatible.
How to read this: the seven combinations are a descriptive grammar, not a rulebook with numbers. The classical text records how paired herbs were observed to behave; it does not and cannot certify that any particular pairing is safe for any particular person. Modern pharmacology has found that some of these traditional pairings correspond to measurable interactions and others do not, and the question is still studied. What the framework contributes today is a precise, shared language for talking about herb-to-herb interaction — and a reminder that combination, not the single herb, was always the unit of classical practice.
「七情」是描述两味药同用时相互关系的传统词汇，出自《神农本草经》序录，原文列举：单行、相须、相使、相畏、相恶、相反、相杀。它说的是「关系」而不是「成分」：功效相似的同用可能互相增强（相须），辅药可助主药（相使），一味药的毒性可被另一味牵制（相畏、相杀，后世多读作良性搭配），也有记载彼此削弱（相恶）或直接冲突（相反）的配对。最后一类是后世方书「十八反、十九畏」名录的源头，用于罗列传统上认为不宜同用的药对。
怎么读这一条：七情是一套描述性的语法，不是带数字的规则手册。古籍记录的是配伍被观察到的行为，它不能为任何具体的人担保任何具体搭配的安全性。现代药理研究发现其中一些传统记载与可测量的相互作用对应，另一些则不然，问题仍在研究中。这套框架今天的价值，是一套谈论「药与药相互作用」的精确公共语言——以及一个提醒：经典实践的基本单位从来是配伍，而不是单味药。
Classical Chinese medicine describes the vital energy (qi) not as one undifferentiated substance but as a family of functional currents, each with its own origin, route and job. Four of these are singled out in the foundational texts: yuan qi (original qi), zong qi (pectoral or ancestral qi), ying qi (nutritive qi) and wei qi (defensive qi).
Yuan qi is the deepest layer. It is described as rooted between the two kidneys, in the region later texts call ming men (the gate of life), and is understood as the primordial endowment a person is born with, drawn from the essence (jing) of both parents. The Huangdi Neijing does not use the term yuan qi as a fixed technical label — that usage was consolidated by later authors such as the Ming physician Zhang Jingyue — but the Neijing already treats the kidney system as the storehouse of prenatal essence. Yuan qi is not spent on daily tasks; it is the baseline that warms and activates all the other qi.
Zong qi assembles in the chest, in the region called shang qi hai, the upper sea of qi. The Lingshu (chapter 4 among others) describes it as formed where the air taken in by the lung meets the food essence raised by the spleen and stomach. Its two documented jobs: it feeds the heart and lung to drive breathing and the beat of the pulse, and it flows down to support the voice and the rhythm of respiration.
Ying qi and wei qi are described together in Lingshu 50 (Ying Wei Sheng Hui) as two halves of one circulation. Both begin from food essence, both run in continuous cycles. Ying qi is the clearer, softer current: it travels inside the vessels alongside the blood, transforming into the nutritive part of the body. Wei qi is the swifter, tougher one: it runs outside the vessels, along the body surface, day and night, and its classical role is warming and guarding — regulating the opening and closing of the pores (couli) and holding the exterior against external pathogens.
The division is functional, not anatomical: one origin (food and air, resting on the prenatal base), several specializations. Later generations summarized it in one line — yuan qi roots, zong qi gathers in the chest, ying nourishes within, wei guards without. The Neijing presents these as descriptions of how the body is observed to work; whether they map onto modern physiological categories is not claimed by the classical sources themselves.
中医基础理论把「气」分成各有来历、各管一段的几股，其中最常引用的是四种：元气、宗气、营气、卫气。
元气是最深一层，后世表述为「根于两肾之间（命门）」，禀受于父母先天之精。《内经》虽未把「元气」固定为术语（这一定型见于明代张景岳等），但已把肾系统当作先天之精的库房。元气不直接干日常的活，它的角色是温煦与推动——其余诸气都靠它打底。
宗气积于胸中（上气海）。《灵枢》多处记载它由肺吸入的清气与脾胃上输的水谷精微「相合」而成，文献明确记载的职责有两条：一是贯心脉、行呼吸——推动肺的呼吸与心的搏动节律；二是下走以支持声音与气息。
营气与卫气在《灵枢·营卫生会》里被作为一对来讲：两者同源（皆出于水谷精微），都在做昼夜不停的循环。营气「清柔」，行于脉中，与血同行，化生身体所需的营养部分；卫气「悍疾」，行于脉外、循体表昼夜运行，经典记载的职能是「温分肉、充皮肤、肥腠理、司开阖」——主管毛孔腠理的开合，抵御外邪，是身体的「卫外」层。
这个分工是功能性的，不是解剖性的：同一个来源（水谷与清气，垫在先天元气之上），几条不同的分工线。后世的概括是一句话——元气根于下，宗气积于胸，营行脉中以濡养，卫行脉外以固表。需要说明：这些是古人对身体运作的观察描述，经典本身并没有主张它们直接对应现代解剖或生理学的某个具体结构。
Chinese medicine answers the question of why people fall ill with a pair of terms rather than with a single cause: Zheng Qi, translated variously as upright or righteous Qi, and Xie Qi, the pathogenic influence. Upright Qi is not a substance. It is the body's working capacity to hold itself together, to warm and move things, to close a wound, to keep an invasion out and to settle back afterwards. A pathogen is anything that pushes against that capacity.
The two sentences quoted everywhere are these: "When upright Qi is present within, the pathogen cannot intrude" (Su Wen, on needling methods), and "Where the pathogen gathers, the Qi is necessarily deficient" (Su Wen, on evaluating heat diseases). Read together they say that illness is a relation between two things, not the arrival of one.
Notice what this framing is not. It is not germ theory. The six influences — wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness and fire — are named after weather, but "wind" here describes how a set of findings behaves: sudden onset, shifting location, upper part of the body. It does not claim there was something in the air. A person who develops a stiff neck after sitting in a draught is not being told that the draught contained a substance.
Nor does "deficient" correspond to any measured value. No instrument reports upright Qi, and the word cannot tell you who will catch an infection and who will not.
What survives translation into modern terms is the narrower claim underneath: the same exposure makes some people sick and leaves others well. That much is real, and research into how much of an agent actually reaches a person, into immunity and into host factors takes it seriously. What the classical sentence does not give you is which factor it is for any particular person.
This matters because "deficiency" is a comfortable word. Calling a persistent problem "just deficiency" is one of the ways an examination gets delayed. Unexplained weight loss, drenching night sweats, blood in the stool or urine, a new lump, or a fever that will not settle are not matters for this vocabulary. They need an investigation, and no pattern name substitutes for one.
This entry describes how the literature frames illness. Whether supporting upright Qi changes the course of any named disease has not been established.
中医对「为什么会生病」的回答不是给出一个病因，而是给出一对词：正气与邪气。正气不是某种物质，而是身体自我维持的能力——温煦、推动、固摄、防御、痊愈，以及事后恢复平稳的能力。邪气则是任何与之相抗的作用。
被引得最多的两句是：「正气存内，邪不可干」（《素问·刺法论》）与「邪之所凑，其气必虚」（《素问·评热病论》）。两句合起来说的不是某样东西来了，而是两者之间的相对关系。
要留意这个框架「不是」什么：它不是病原学说。六淫以气候命名，但「风」描述的是一组表现的行为方式——起病急、部位游走、多在上部，而不是说空气里含有某物。迎风之后项强的人，得到的并不是「风里有东西」这个判断。
「虚」也不对应任何可测数值：没有仪器会给出正气值，这个词并不能判断谁会被感染、谁不会。
能真正翻译到现代语境的是它下面那句更克制的主张：同样的暴露，有人发病、有人不发病。这一点是真实的，接触量、免疫与宿主因素的研究正是围绕它展开的；但古典那句话并没有告诉你是哪一个因素在具体这个人身上起作用。
这一点很重要，因为「虚」是个让人安心的词。把迁延不愈的问题说成「只是有点虚」，是检查被推迟的常见方式之一。不明原因的体重下降、大汗盗汗、大小便带血、新出现的肿块、持续不退的发热，不属于这套词汇的处理范围——它们需要检查，任何证名都不能替代检查。
本条只描述文献如何影响疾病这件事。至于「扶正」能否改变某个具体疾病的病程，尚未被证实。
The eight methods are eight words: sweating, vomiting, purging, harmonising, warming, clearing, dispersing and tonifying. They appear as a set in Cheng Guopeng's Yixue Xinwu (1732), although every one of the words is older than that book — "cold is met with heat, heat is met with cold" is already in the Su Wen.
The first thing to understand about the eight is what kind of thing they are. They classify strategic direction; they are not a treatment list. This entry gives no treatment, no formula, no quantities and no indication, and nothing here should be read as an instruction to do anything. A practitioner choosing among the eight is choosing a direction of travel: outwards, downwards, upwards, warming, cooling, breaking apart, or building up.
Two of the eight should be read as history. Induced vomiting is essentially obsolete in modern practice and was abandoned for good reasons: it is not a safe manoeuvre, and the drug once used to provoke it is no longer recommended even for accidental poisoning. Purging survives in everyday form as laxatives, which carry their own well-documented problems, including electrolyte disturbance and dependence; "cleaning out the bowels" as a general route to health is supported by nothing.
Sweating deserves a specific caution. Sweating that is deliberately produced is a real physiological load, and sweating that arrives on its own may be the presenting sign of something else entirely — a heart attack, sepsis, low blood sugar, thyroid storm. It is a sign to be read, not a target to be chased.
Dispersing is the method used for accumulations and masses. Today a mass is a question for imaging before it is anything else. Tonifying is the one most readers assume is harmless; it is also the category that contains several of the longest safety notes in this library, including the herbs that interact with conventional medicines.
Whether the eightfold arrangement works as a complete and validated system has not been established.
八法是八个字：汗、吐、下、和、温、清、消、补。作为一组完整列出，见于程国彭《医学心悟》（1732）；但每个字都比这本书早得多——「寒者热之，热者寒之」已见于《素问》。
理解八法的第一件事是搞清楚它们「是什么种类的东西」：它们是对「战略方向」的分类，不是一张治疗清单。本条不给出任何治疗、方剂、用量与适应指征，也不应被读成可以照做的指示。执业者在八法之间选择，选的是一个去向：向外、向下、向上、温、清、消散，或补益。
其中两法应当当作历史来读。催吐在现代实践中基本已被弃用，被弃用的理由很充分：这不是一个安全的做法，曾经用于催吐的药物如今连意外中毒的常规处理都不再推荐。泻下则以通便药的形式留在日常里，而它有自己的、记载充分的问题——电解质紊乱与依赖都在其中；把「通一通肠道」当作通往健康的一般路径，没有任何依据支持。
发汗需要单独一条提醒：人为造成的出汗是真实的生理负荷；而自己来的大汗可能是完全不同的另一件事的表现——心肌梗死、脓毒症、低血糖、甲状腺危象都在此列。它是要被读出来的征象，不是要去追的目标。
消法用于积滞与痞块。今天遇到肿块，第一站是影像检查，而不是别的什么。补法是最容易被读者默认「无害」的一法，而它恰好是本库几条最长安全提示所在的大类，包含那些与常规药物发生相互作用的药材。
至于这套八分法作为一个系统是否成立并经过验证，尚未被证实。
The word "meridian" covers several different things in the classical literature, and the layers are not interchangeable. The Lingshu takes them one at a time — a chapter for the regular channels, one for the divergent channels, one for the sinew channels — and the Su Wen adds the skin regions.
The regular channels are the trunk. Twelve paired channels run lengthwise, each carries a fixed set of points, and each is attached to a Zang or Fu. This is the layer most readers mean by the word "meridian", and it is the layer that has been mapped most thoroughly against modern surface anatomy and against the WHO point standard.
The divergent channels branch off the regular channels, travel deeper into the body cavities and rejoin their paired channel. Their described job is to strengthen the link between the two channels of an exterior-interior pair.
The luo vessels are the crosswise branches that spread over the surface. The fifteen luo each has its own named luo point, and the superficial ones are visible — they are the ones bled in classical practice.
The sinew channels are the layer with no points and no organ attachments. They bind the joints and govern movement, and they are the layer most often compared to what modern anatomy calls myofascial chains. It is a comparison, not an identity.
The skin regions are the areas of skin allocated to each channel. They are the outermost layer, the route by which an exterior influence is said to enter, and the field in which surface techniques such as cutaneous needling are carried out. They are sometimes compared with dermatomes; the two do not divide the body the same way and should not be collapsed into each other.
None of these layers has been demonstrated as an anatomical structure, and this entry makes no such claim. The useful reading is functional: the layers describe different jobs. They also carry different risk — anything that breaks the skin is an invasive procedure whatever layer it is aimed at, and the deeper layers include the sites where pneumothorax and nerve injury have been reported.
「经络」这个词在古典文献里覆盖了好几种东西，各层之间不能互换。《灵枢》是逐层分论的——经脉一篇、经别一篇、经筋一篇，《素问》另有皮部之论。
经脉是主干：十二条对称循行，纵行走向，各有固定的穴位与所属的脏腑。这是读者说到「经络」时通常所指的那一层，也是与现代体表解剖、与 WHO 腧穴标准对应得最充分的一层。
经别从经脉分出，深入体腔，再与其相表里的经脉合流。文献给它的职责是加强表里两经之间的联系。
络脉是横行散布于浅表的分支。十五络各有自己的络穴，浮在浅层、肉眼可见的那些，正是古典实践里刺络放血所用之处。
经筋是唯一没有穴位、不与脏腑连属的一层。它联缀关节、主司运动，也是最常被拿来与现代解剖所说的肌筋膜链相比的一层——只是相比，并非等同。
皮部是按经脉划分到皮肤上的区域。它是最外一层，被认为是外邪由表入里的路径，也是皮肤针等浅表手法的施术范围。有人把它与皮节相比：两者划分身体的方式并不相同，不应互相折算。
这些层次没有任何一层被证明是解剖学上的实体结构，本条不作这种主张。更有用的读法是功能性的：各层描述的是不同的职责。它们的风险也不同——凡破皮者皆为侵入性操作，不论针对哪一层；而较深的层次里，包含那些有气胸与神经损伤记载的部位。
The full pack has all 408, grouped by meridian. Locations follow the WHO standard; safety notes are kept where they are needed.
Location (WHO standard). At the centre of the umbilicus.
肚脐正中，即脐窝中央处。
The umbilicus itself. Classical texts describe it as forbidden to needle, and used with moxibustion instead — a rare example of an explicit classical prohibition.
Location (WHO standard). On the medial aspect of the thigh, 2 cun directly below ST30, at the lateral border of the adductor longus muscle.
在大腿内侧，气冲直下2寸，长收肌之外侧缘。
"Yin" marks the medial side and "lian" the edge or border beside which the point lies. It is listed one cun above LR10 along the same muscle border; the two are normally described together, and the record is of locality.
Location (WHO standard). On the posterolateral aspect of the arm, at the midpoint of the line joining TE11 (Qinglengyuan) and TE13 (Nahui).
在臂后外侧，清冷渊（TE11）与臑会（TE13）连线的中点处。
The twelfth point of the Triple Burner meridian. The name is read as "dissolving the marsh" — classical naming in this region often describes the dispersion of local stagnation. This is a naming convention, not a claim about effect.
Every term in the full pack carries the English, the Chinese and the pinyin, so a translated book stops being guesswork. This is the part we are asked about most often — so here it is, in full format.
Generated from the same data as the pack, answers included.
1294 entries across 10 modules — Module 2 · The Meridian Map (20 meridians) · Module 3 · The Key Points (408 acupoints) · Module 4 · Diagnosis & Patterns (66 entries) · Module 5 · Therapies (25 entries) · Module 6 · Herbs (322 herbs) · Module 7 · Classical Formulas (213 formulas) · Module 8 · Glossary (204 terms) · Module 9 · Self-check (34 questions) · Module 10 · A 14-Day Plan (14 days + worksheet).
$29 one time. No subscription, no renewal, no account to create. One file you keep: it opens with no connection, and every module starts on a new page, so Ctrl+P gives you a clean PDF. The free knowledge base needs a browser and prints a page at a time — this does neither.
Buy the pack — $29What is in the pack →
We confirm the payment, then send the file. 30-day full refund, no explanation needed, and you keep the file. The knowledge base stays free either way.