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Chapter 33 Discourse Deliberating upon Heat Disease 33-194-6 Huang Di asked: “someone suffers from warmth. When sweat has left [his body], the heat returns always1 and the [movement in the] vessels races. The disease is not weakened by the sweating.2 [The patient] utters crazy words and cannot eat. What is the name of this disease?” Qi Bo responded: “The disease is named ‘yin yang interaction.’ If it comes to [such] an interaction, [the patient] will die.”3 [Huang] Di: “I should like to hear an explanation of this.” 1 fu Weikang & Wu Hongzhou/290: “輒 has the meaning of 常常, ‘often.’ ” 232/55: “輒 has the meaning of 即, ‘then.’ ” 2 In contrast, Gao Jiwu/438: “不能被發汗減輕, ‘one must not diminish the essence through causing [the patient] to sweat.’ another reading could be 不因發汗減輕, ‘one [must] not diminish the essence by having [the patient] sweat.’ 為 is interpreted here as 因, ‘because.’ ” 3 yang shangshan: “sweat is a yin liquid; heat is abundance of yang qi. When the yang [qi] abounds, there is no sweat. When sweat leaves [the body], then the heat decreases. When in the present case, heat leaves [the body] while the heat fails to decrease, this is [a situation where] the yang evil abounds and yin [qi] emerges anew. The two interact with each other, hence the name [of the disease] is ‘yin yang interaction .’ ”Wang Bing: “交 is to say 交合,‘to form a union.’ The qi of yin and yang do not separate.” Wan lanqing et al./26: “ ‘yin’ refers to the proper qi of yin essence; ‘yang’ refers to the evil of yang heat. ..The yang evil enters the yin section.The evil abounds and the proper [qi] is weak. Because the evil of the yang heat steams away the body liquids,the [resulting] exhaustion of yin essence brings forth the most dangerous signs of a loss of yin and also of a loss of yang. Hence [the text] speaks of ‘death.’ ”1502/50: “陰陽交 is not a disease of its own; it is a serious pathological condition appearing in the development of heat disease. It has its name because yang heat moves to the interior and intrudes into the yin section, yin liquid flows off to the outside, with the result that yin and yang mix with each other.” 1966/55: “交 should be interpreted as 交爭, ‘to interact with and battle against each other.’ ” see also 2286/40. 516 Huang Di nei jing su wen Qi Bo: “That because of which sweat leaves man is generated by grain; grain generates essence.4 now, when evil [qi] and [proper] qi interact in a struggle5 in the bones and in the flesh and when this leads to sweating, [this indicates that] the evil retreats and the essence6 dominates. When the essence dominates, then one should be able to eat and there should be no returning heat. {returning heat is evil qi.} {The sweat is essence qi.} When, in the present case, after the sweat has left [the body], the heat always returns, this [indicates that] evil dominates. When [the patient] cannot eat, the essence has nothing from which it [could] emerge.7 4 Wang Bing: “The qi of the grains is transformed to essence. When the essence qi dominates, it causes sweating.”246/10: “The 于 in 生于穀 is identical with 從,‘from.’ This is a very common meaning and Wang Bing did not add a comment. However, the 于 in 穀生于精 is an auxiliary word, without any meaning of its own in this sentence . Hence Wang Bing comments this passage as 穀氣化為精 to point out to the reader that the character 于 is not translatable here.” Gao Jiwu/236 agrees. 2552/15: “ ‘essence’ refers to the liquids inside the body here.”666/43: “汗生于穀, 穀生于精 is to say: sweat is a product of the transformation of water and grains. However, when there is no essence qi for the transformation of water and grains, then the water and the grains simply remain water and grains and there is nothing from which sweat could be produced through transformation. This process can be summarized and put in simple language as: sweat is generated by essence. Hence further on the text states: ‘sweat is essence qi.’ and it states also: ‘If someone cannot eat, [his] essence has nothing that could add to it.’ ” 5 678/55 supports a reading of 邪氣 here as “evil [qi] and [proper] qi.” 6 1583/59: “精 stands for 正, ‘the proper.’ ” 7 Wang Bing: “無俾 is to say: it has nothing that could stimulate it to become sweat. When the grains are not transformed...

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