ZHANG Yuansu's Inheritance and Development of the Doctrine of Five Evolutive Phases and Six Climatic Factors in the Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor (《黄帝内经》)
JIANG Jing, LIU Gang, ZHANG Yuxin, et al. ZHANG Yuansu's Inheritance and Development of the Doctrine of Five Evolutive Phases and Six Climatic Factors in the Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor (《黄帝内经》)[J]. Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2023, 64(8): 761-764. DOI: 10.13288/j.11-2166/r.2023.08.002.
JIANG Jing, LIU Gang, ZHANG Yuxin, et al. ZHANG Yuansu's Inheritance and Development of the Doctrine of Five Evolutive Phases and Six Climatic Factors in the Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor (《黄帝内经》)[J]. Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2023, 64(8): 761-764. DOI: 10.13288/j.11-2166/r.2023.08.002.DOI:
The doctrine of five evolutive phases and six climatic factors (abbreviated as the doctrine) is described in large amount of text in the
Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor
(《黄帝内经》), accounting for nearly 1/4 of the length of
Basic Questions
(《素问》). The description of pathological mechanism, treatment and others have extremely high value for guiding the clinical practice. Based on the classic
Origins of Medicine
(《医学启源》) by ZHANG Yuansu of the
Yishui
(易水) School, this paper discussed his inheritance and development of the doctrine in the
Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor,
using the method of textual research. It is believed that ZHANG Yuansu not only takes full advantages of the doctrine, but dares to break through and innovate. He uses the “the main treatment method of six
qi
” to unify the complexity of “six
qi
as a disease” in the doctrine, and clarifies the ascending and descending theory of
qi
and flavor in the doctrine with “the diagram of the ups and downs of
yin
and
yang
, the thick and the thin, the cold and the hot”, and uses “preparation based on five phases and generation and restriction cycles” to govern the treatment method of the five flavors in the doctrine. Based on these, he establishes the system of theory-law-prescription-medicine, which is characterized by “differentiation of the diseases and prescription of the formulas based on
zang
-
fu
(脏腑) organs” and “understanding the herbal medicine with analogy”, and has created the
Yishui
School with a profound influence on later generations.