Formulas · Text · Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

The Small Intestine

Sojangbu

한글 소장부 · Pinyin Xiao Chang Fu

The official of receiving and holding — three jang two cheok of coil to the left of the navel, sixteen folds, where the clear is parted from the turbid and sent to bladder and bowel

小腸腑

The third bowel chapter, and the shortest of them. The small intestine is measured like the stomach — three jang two cheok long, coiled sixteen times to the left of the navel, holding two mal four seung of grain and six seung of water — and given one job: to receive what the stomach has ripened, and at its lower mouth to part the clear from the turbid, sending water to the bladder and dregs to the large intestine. The Nanjing names that gate the 闌門, the gate of the rail. The organ is read from the lips and the philtrum, and from the skin, because it pairs with the heart and the heart rules the vessels; its disease is pain in the lower abdomen pulling on the testicles and up to the back, with heat in front of the ear; and because it is the heart's bowel, its treatment is to open and drain — Dojeok-san and Jeokbokryeong-tang, two formulas that send the heart's fire out in the urine. The signs of its end are hair standing like dry hemp and sweat that will not stop, and the nine simples are all things that make water pass.

9.1 The Form of the Small Intestine 小腸形象

9.1.1

Source원문

小腸長三丈二尺, 廣二寸半, 徑八分分之少半, 重二斤十四兩. 當臍左廻疊積十六曲, 盛穀二斗四升, 水六升三合合之太半. 《靈樞》

Translation영역

The small intestine is three jang two cheok long, two chon five pun around, and a little under eight pun across; it weighs two geun fourteen nyang. It coils to the left of the navel in sixteen folds stacked on each other, and holds two mal four seung of grain and six seung three and two-thirds hop of water.

Clinical note임상 주석

Three jang two cheok is some seven metres, and the small intestine is about six. The Lingshu's gut measurements are the closest thing in the classics to a dissection record, and the Ojangyukbu chapter's 1.10 gave their total.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.2 The Position of the Small Intestine 小腸部位

9.2.1

Source원문

小腸後附脊, 當臍左環廻周葉, 積而下. 《靈樞》

Translation영역

The small intestine is attached behind to the spine, and at the level of the navel winds round to the left in circling leaves, stacking downward.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.2.2

Source원문

胃之下口, 卽小腸上口, 名曰幽門. 臍上一寸水分穴, 卽小腸下口也. 《入門》

Translation영역

The lower mouth of the stomach is the upper mouth of the small intestine, named the dark gate; the point Subun one chon above the navel is the small intestine's lower mouth.

Clinical note임상 주석

幽門, the dark gate — the pylorus, and the tradition's name is still the anatomical one in Korean and Chinese. 水分, the water-parting, is the point where 9.3 says the clear and turbid separate, and the Oedema chapter moxas it for that reason.

Immun 入門

9.2.3

Source원문

關元一穴, 在臍下三寸, 小腸之募也. 在背則小腸兪, 在脊十八顀下兩傍, 此小腸部位也. 《銅人》

Translation영역

The point Gwanwon (關元, CV4), three chon below the navel, is the small intestine's alarm point; on the back, Sojangsu (小腸兪, BL27) is on either side below the eighteenth vertebra. These are the small intestine's territory.

Clinical note임상 주석

Gwanwon — the point the Qi chapter's 4.6.2 made the lower cinnabar field, and the Essence chapter's 3.18 moxaed for seminal loss. It is the small intestine's alarm point, and the tradition put the origin qi and the gut's sorting in the same place.

Dongin 銅人

9.3 What the Small Intestine Passes and Receives 小腸傳受

9.3.1

Source원문

凡胃中腐熟水穀, 其滓穢自胃之下口, 傳入於小腸上口. 自小腸下口, 泌別淸濁, 水液入膀胱上口, 滓穢入大腸上口. 難經曰, 小腸大腸會, 謂之闌門, 言由關闌分隔也. 《入門》

Translation영역

Water and grain rotted and ripened in the stomach pass as residue from the stomach's lower mouth into the small intestine's upper mouth; at the small intestine's lower mouth the clear is parted from the turbid — the fluid enters the bladder's upper mouth and the residue enters the large intestine's upper mouth. The Nanjing says: where the small and large intestines meet is called the gate of the rail, meaning that they are divided as by a barrier rail.

Clinical note임상 주석

泌別淸濁 — parting the clear from the turbid. The small intestine's one function, and the tradition's account of absorption: water to the bladder, waste to the colon, at a single gate. The Urine chapter's whole theory of where urine comes from is this sentence.

Immun 入門

9.4 The Outer Signs of the Small Intestine 小腸外候

9.4.1

Source원문

脣厚人中長, 以候小腸.

Translation영역

Thick lips and a long philtrum are the signs by which to judge the small intestine.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.4.2

Source원문

心應脈. 皮厚者脈厚, 脈厚者小腸厚. 皮薄者脈薄, 脈薄者小腸薄. 皮緩者脈緩, 脈緩者小腸大而長. 皮薄而脈沖小者, 小腸小而短. 諸陽經脈皆多紆屈者, 小腸結也. 《靈樞》

Translation영역

The heart answers to the vessels. Thick skin means thick vessels, and thick vessels a thick small intestine; thin skin means thin vessels, and thin vessels a thin small intestine; slack skin means slack vessels, and slack vessels a large, long small intestine. Thin skin with vessels that are weak and small means a small, short small intestine. Where the yang channel vessels are all much bent and crooked, the small intestine is knotted.

Clinical note임상 주석

Skin → vessels → small intestine: a chain of three, because the heart rules the vessels and the small intestine is the heart's bowel. The Lingshu reads the bowel through its viscus, as it read the gallbladder through the liver's nails.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.5 The Patterns of Small Intestine Disease 小腸病證

9.5.1

Source원문

中氣不足, 腸爲之苦鳴.

Translation영역

Where the centre qi is insufficient, the intestines suffer from rumbling.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.5.2

Source원문

小腸病者, 小腹痛, 腰脊控睾而痛睾, 陰丸也, 時窘之候, 當耳前熱.

Translation영역

In small intestine disease there is pain of the lower abdomen, the lumbus and spine draw on the testicles 睾 is the testicles with pain, at times with a sense of urgency, and there is heat in front of the ear.

Clinical note임상 주석

Pain from the groin to the back, with the testicles pulled — the small intestine's channel runs through the pelvis, and the Lingshu's picture is the pain of the gut felt in the scrotum. 當耳前熱, heat in front of the ear, is where the channel ends.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.5.3

Source원문

小腸控睾, 引腰脊, 上衝心, 邪在小腸也. 《靈樞》

Translation영역

Where the small intestine draws on the testicles, pulls on the lumbus and spine, and surges up to the heart, the evil is in the small intestine.

Yeongchu 靈樞

9.5.4

Source원문

小腸爲泄. 《內經》

Translation영역

The small intestine makes for diarrhoea.

Naegyeong 內經

9.5.5

Source원문

小腸有氣, 則小腹痛. 小腸有血, 則小便澁. 小腸有熱, 則莖中痛. 《入門》

Translation영역

Where the small intestine has qi, the lower abdomen pains; where it has blood, the urine is rough; where it has heat, the penis pains within.

Clinical note임상 주석

Three signs sorted by what is stuck — qi, blood, heat — and the last two are the Urine chapter's strangury. The small intestine's disease shows in the water it sends to the bladder.

Immun 入門

9.6 The Treatment of Small Intestine Disease 小腸病治法

9.6.1

Source원문

小腸者, 心之府也. 有病宜通利, 用導赤散ㆍ赤茯苓湯.

Translation영역

The small intestine is the heart's bowel. Where it is diseased it should be opened and drained, using Guide Out the Red Powder and Red Poria Decoction.

Clinical note임상 주석

One rule — open and drain — and two formulas for it, both registered. The bowel that parts the clear from the turbid is treated by helping it pass, and both formulas send the heart's heat out through it. The Heart chapter's 3.11 used the same two for the heart's repletion.

Donguibogam · Sojang

9.7 The Signs of the Small Intestine Expiring 小腸絶候

9.7.1

Source원문

小腸絶六日死, 何以知之. 髮直如乾麻, 不得屈伸, 自汗不止. 《脈經》

Translation영역

The small intestine expiring, death in six days — how is it known? The hair stands straight like dry hemp, one cannot bend or stretch, and spontaneous sweat does not stop.

Clinical note임상 주석

Hair like dry hemp — the sign the Hair chapter reads as the blood's end, and the small intestine's expiry is read on the hair because it is the heart's bowel and the heart's bloom is the complexion and the hair's is the blood.

Maekgyeong 脉經

9.8 Simple Medicinals 單方

9.8.1

Source원문

凡九種.

Translation영역

Nine kinds in all.

Clinical note임상 주석

Nine simples for the small intestine — alisma, akebia, dianthus, forsythia, poria with pine root, black bean, gardenia, wax-gourd juice and boiled mallow juice. Every one of them makes water pass; the dianthus entry says 通心經利小腸爲最要, it opens the heart channel and frees the small intestine above all. The bowel's whole materia medica is the treatment rule of 9.6.

Donguibogam · Sojang

About this translation 凡例

Base text: Donguibogam (東醫寶鑑, 1613 first edition), Inner Landscape, Volume 3, The Small Intestine chapter. The Chinese text is collated against the public-domain Wikisource transcription and a printed edition; original character forms (脉, 人參) are retained. Terminology follows Wiseman & Feng, A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. Translation and clinical notes are original to this site. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.