The Sanghanlonik attributes cold damage to the invasion og the body by evils such as wind and cold, and explains the vast variety of manifestations of cold damage in terms of the way in which these evils affect various parts of the channel and network...
The Sanghanlonik attributes cold damage to the invasion og the body by evils such as wind and cold, and explains the vast variety of manifestations of cold damage in terms of the way in which these evils affect various parts of the channel and network vessel system. Disease in any of the six channels takes the form of different disease pattwens that are reflected in various constellations of signs and pulse conditions. It is for this reason that each chapter title contains the words 'Pulse and Signs.' These disease patterns reflect certain specific etiologies.
The Greater Yang controls the construction and defence, and governs the exterior of the body, which serves as the body's external barrier. Accordingly, many of the signs associated with greater yang appear in the early stages of disease. The essential features of greater yang disease are a pulse that is floating, headache, stiffness and pain of the head and nape, heateffusion, and aversion to cold.
The main feature of Yang brightness disease is yang hyperactivity and heat exuberance. An evil can directly enter the yang brightness channel from the exterior, but it usually passes into the channel from the greater yang. Yang brightness disease is generally characterized by generalized heat effusion, spontaneous sweating, aversion not to cold but to heat, and a pulse that is large. Distinction is made between a heat patter and a repletion pattern.
Lesser Yang disease manifests as a half exterior half interior pattern, perhaps more accurately described as a 'halfway pattern' since it is correctly conceived as disease located neither in the exterior nor in the interior, but between the two. The essential features are bitter taste in the mouse, dry throat, and dizzy vision. Other major signs are alternating aversion to cold and heat effusion, fullness in the chest and rib-side, taciturnity with no desire for food or drink, heart vexation, frequent retching, and white tongue fur. The pulse of lesser yang disease is one of that fine and stringlike.
Greater Yin disease is an interior vacuity cold pattern of spleen yang vacuity, and is characterized by abdominal fullness, vomiting, inability to get food down, severe diarrhea, and occasional abdominal pain. Greater yin disease can result from an unresolved yang channel disease damaging spleen yang, from direct invasion of wind-cold, or from internal damage engendering cold-rheum. When the spleen yang is vacuous, cold and dampness become exuberant, and transformation are impaired. If greater yin disease progresses further, it may become spleen-kidney vacuity cold and form a lesser yin vacuity cold pattern.
Lesser Yin disease, a pattern of interior vacuity, usually develops from disease that starts in one of the otherchannels, although it can be the result of an evil penetrating directly into the interior in someone with a vacuous constitution. It includes serious conditions that may be fatal. The major manifestations of lesser yin disease are a pulse that is fine and faint, and a desire to sleep. Distinction is made between cold transformation and heat transformation patterns. Cold transformation is the result of heart-kidney yang qi debility and in addition to the above signs also includes aversion to cold, curled-up lying posture, heart vexation, vomiting and diarrhea, thirst with desire for hot fluids, small intake of fluid, clear uninhibited urination, and reversal cold of the extremities. In severe cases, when the yang qi is repelled by the yin cold, one may see no aversion to cold, heat effusion, red face, and vexation and agitation, which indicates true cold and false heat. Heat transformation, a result of yin vacuity, is characterized by heart vexation and inability to sleep, dry sore throat, diarrhea, thirst, crimson tongue, and a pulse that is fine and rapid.
Reverting Yin disease generally develops sometime after the onset of cold damage disease. It is more complicated and severe than disease of any other channel. The main forms are as follows: upper-body heat and lower-body cold patterns; reverse-flow patters; and patterns characterized by either diarrhea, reverse-flow, retching, or hiccup.