The Holistic Outlook: Association

In holistic outlook, there was another form, which we call the idea Association today. According to the idea Association, one phenomenon or object did not exist in isolation; rather it related to other phenomenon or objects. In other words, all things existed in a whole or a structure. In accordance, man should consider things to be associated rather than isolated. In ancient Chinese medicine, the idea Association was presented in the most typical way.

According to The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, human's body was composed of five organs in Zang and six organs in Fu that were inter-connected. In Basic Questions, Six Zang and Six Fu in Human Body, there was a famous passage:

Yellow Emperor said, "I want to know the duty and status of the 12 organs in human's body."

Qi Bo answered, "So specific is your question! Let me discuss one by one. Heart is like a king and controls the human's movement; lung is like a prime minister and coordinates the movement; liver is like a general and takes strategy; gallbladder is like a judge and makes judgment; Shan Zhong is like an envoy and expresses joy or anger; spleen and stomach are like an official in charge of food supply and affect the nutrition; large intestine is like a carrier and transports the waste matter; small intestine is like a container and discharge waste matter; kidney is like a supporter and provides power to human; Three Burners (San Jiao) is like an official in charge of watercourse and controls the channel for discharge; bladder is like a prefecture-level official and collects and discharges urine. Although they function dependency, they are not separate."

As the above suggested, human's body looked like a governmental organization, in which the offices worked dependently but could not exist solely. Besides, they fulfilled their duties through coordinating with each other.

The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor expounded the idea Association in detail. Firstly, it viewed that the five organs in Zang and the six organs in Fu were interconnected. In Zang, their relationship was "Heart rules kidney; lung rules heart; liver rules lung; spleen rules liver; kidney rules spleen." (Basic Questions, The Formation of the Five Organs) For Zang and Fu, their relationship was "Lung relates to large intestine; heart relates to small intestine; liver relates to gallbladder; spleen relates to stomach; kidney relates to bladder." (Central Area, Acupuncture Point) Secondly, the relationship between Zang and Fu caused the interaction of diseases, the transfer of disease between organs in Zang: "When kidney moves cold to spleen, carbuncle and shortness of breath happen; when spleen moves cold to liver, carbuncle and spasm happen; when liver moves cold to heart, the disease intensifies and choke happens." (Basic Questions, On Cold and Warm Qi in Human Body) The transfer of disease between organs in Zang and Fu was: "When it coughs at spleen, stomach suffers; when at liver, gallbladder suffers; when at lung, large intestine suffers." (On Cough) In addition, The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor suggested that not only Zang and Fu, but also Zang-Fu and human's body interacted, which was presented in three ways. The first was appearance: "When heart harmonizes with pulse, it benefits blood." "When lung harmonizes with skin, it benefits skin." (The Formation of the Five Organs) The second was association: "Liver relates to eyes; spleen to mouth; kidney to Er Tin (the pubic region)." (Discussion on the Important Ideas in the Golden Chamber) The third was acupuncture points. According to Chinese Meridian Theory, the organs in Zang were connected with human's body via the meridian system and formed many acupuncture points. To conclude, human could understand disease through the Zang-Fu and body interaction and cure disease through the acupuncture po'ml-Zang interaction.

It must be noted that the association of the five organs in The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor was based on the Five Elements Theory that was popular in ancient China. However, it sounded unreasonable to put the Five Elements Theory into universal use, neither did medicine, as the association in human's body could not simply explained with the theory. Regardless of the specific use, the idea Association in The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor was certainly valuable, which has been confirmed by modern medicine.