The Pairing of Heart and Small Intestine Xin Xiao Chang Xiang Biao Li 心 小 肠 相 表 里

Electra Peluffo

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DOI: 10.4236/cm.2011.24030                

Abstract

This paper investigates the reasoning, based on both Chinese and Western medical data, which will lead to an understanding of the relation of the heart and small intestine, organs which Chinese Medicine, in the Fire energy phase, link both functionally and anatomically. The direct relationship between the liver and the gall bladder and between the kidneys and the bladder is recognised and accepted in both Chinese and Western Medicine. This is not the case with the pairings which in Eastern morphophisiology are formed by the heart and small intestine and the lungs and large intestine. These pairings are not recognised in Western Medicine. The writer in her dual capacity of Doctor of Western Medicine and acupuncturist is investigating the reasons why in Chinese Medicine the heart and small intestine and their meridians form a relation which couples them. For this the comparative method was used between data from Western anatomy which demonstrate the interorganic and functional relation between the small intestine and the heart and the Chinese energy dynamic of the corresponding zangfu and jingluo. Biomedicine which does not relate the heart with the small intestine brings in the materiality of its anatomic descriptions which are valuable for the interpretation of Oriental Medicine. This interrelation between the two organs and their meridians are well explicated in Chinese Medicine whose traditional concepts in this respect are corroborated by Western anatomical descriptions which, nevertheless, do not admit the functional-organic coupling of the heart and small intestine.

Keywords

Organic Pairing, Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Classic of Difficulties, Heart, Small Intestine, Thoracic Duct

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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