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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Lingshu 58 · Injurious Wind
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor said: “You say that injurious wind and harmful qi damage people and make them ill. Yet some never leave shelter or go outside their rooms or caves and suddenly become ill. Have they not remained apart from injurious wind and harmful qi? Why does this happen?”
The supplied question has an irregular repeated negative. Its contrast between sheltered living and sudden illness is retained without rewriting the Chinese.
Qi Bo said: “They have previously been injured by damp qi retained in blood vessels and divisions of flesh, lingering without leaving. Or they have fallen and retained bad blood within. Sudden, unrestrained joy or anger, unsuitable eating and drinking, or untimely cold and warmth close the interstices. When they open and meet wind and cold, blood and qi congeal and join the old harmful influence, producing cold obstruction. With heat there is sweat, and sweating allows wind to be received. Even without meeting injurious wind and harmful qi, some added cause must bring the illness out.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “What you describe is known to the sick person. But when there has been no encounter with harmful qi or alarming intention, yet illness comes suddenly, why is this? Must it be a matter of ghosts and spirits?”
Qi Bo said: “This too has a cause. Harmful influence remains without manifesting; then something is disliked or desired in intention, blood and qi become disordered within and the two qi strike each other. Its origin is subtle, invisible to sight and inaudible to hearing, so it resembles ghosts and spirits.”
The Yellow Emperor said: “Why do some conditions end through invocation?”
Qi Bo said: “Earlier shamans knew what overcomes the many illnesses. Knowing beforehand where an illness arose, they could invoke and bring it to an end.”
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