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2. Relationships among the viscera  Heart and Lung  Heart and Spleen  Heart and Liver  Heart and Kidney  Lung and Spleen  Lung and liver 2

3. Heart and liver  The heart governs blood and liver stores blood;  The two viscera cooperate with each other and commonly maintain normal blood circulation;  Heart blood and liver blood often affect each other and will result in blood deficiency of both the liver and heart or blood stasis of both the heart and liver pathologically. 3

4. Heart and lung  Blood circulation is dependent upon the propelling of heart qi, and also the assistance of lung qi  The lung connects with vessels to assist the heart in circulating blood.  Only when blood circulates normally, and the lung gets its nourishment of blood, can the lung’s function of controlling respiration keep normal.  Pectoral qi is produced through combination of the fresh air inhaled by the lung and foodstuff essence-qi transformed and transported by the spleen and stomach.  The pectoral qi can both go along the gas tract to promote respiration, and permeate through the heart vessels to circulate qi-blood; thus it strengthens the mutual relation between the blood circulation and respiratory movement. 4

5. Heart and spleen  The heart governs blood circulation;  Heart qi drives blood to circulate in the vessels;  The spleen controls blood and spleen qi holds blood to keep it circulate within the vessels;  If the heart qi gets weak to circulate blood, it may lead to blood stasis;  If the spleen qi gets too deficient to control, it may lead to some disorders of qi deficiency with bleeding. 5

6. Heart and Liver  The heart governs blood and liver stores blood.  The two viscera cooperate with each other and maintain normal blood circulation.  Heart blood and liver blood often affect each other, as a result, blood deficiency of both the liver and heave, or blood stasis of both the heart and liver can be noticed. 6

7. Heart and Kidney  The heart, as it is located in the thorax and belongs to fire in the five elements, should descend to warm the kidney water;  The kidney, being located in the lumbar region and belong to the water element, should rise to assist heart yin to restrict heart yang.  If the heart fire fails to descend or the kidney water fails to ascend, it will appear as “discordance between heart and kidney”. 7

8. Lung and Spleen  The function of the lung in governing respiration and the function of the spleen in governing transformation and transportation are responsible to generate qi;  Pathologically, the lung qi deficiency and spleen qi deficiency often mutually affected, thus to develop a syndrome of dual deficiency of the lung and spleen.  If the spleen fails in transporting and transforming water properly, water-dampness may appear and often the lung in diffusing and descending, and symptoms of phlegm, fluid retention, coughing and panting manifested. 8

9. Lung and Liver  the liver is characterized by ascending qi and the lung descending qi.  The coordination between ascent and descent is of important regulatory role to freedom of the whole body’s qi dynamic.  The disorders of liver and lung qi often affect each other.  Adverse rising of liver qi, or up-flaming of liver fire consumes lung yin, which may lead to failure of lung qi to purify and descend.  If the lung fails t purify, dry-heat will get hyperactive internally; as it involves liver yin and then yin fails to restrict yang, it may further result in hyperactivity of liver yang. 9

10. Lung and Kidney  The lung’s function of controlling respiration requires assistance from the kidney’s reception of qi;  Thus body can keep the depth of inspiration and prevent hypopnea, ensuring the smooth respiratory movement.  Pathologically, deficiency of lung qi often results in the failure of the kidney in receiving qi with deficiency of kidney qi; and vice versa.  The lung and kidney act on each other to maintain the normal process of water metabolism,.  If the lung’s or kidney’s function gets disordered, it will cause disturbance of water metabolism, and then there will appear symptoms like edema.  Lung yin and kidney promote each other. When lung yin is sufficient, it will descend to the kidney and enrich the kidney yin. The enriched kidney yin will ascend to the lung to enhance the lung yin.  They are also mutually affected pathologically. 10

11. Liver and Kidney  The liver stores blood, and the kidney stores essence.  The kidney essence is one of the essential materials for generation of blood;  The generation of blood depends upon the sufficiency of essence qi in the kidney;  The liver blood and the kidney essence are physiologically supplementary to each other and also affect each other pathologically.  Inadequate liver blood will result in deficient kidney essence, and vise versa.  When both the liver blood and kidney essence and deficient, dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, deafness, soreness and weakness of the waist and knee may manifest. 11

12. Liver and Kidney  Liver and kidney support each other to regulate menstruation in women and ejaculation in men.  Disorder of menstruation, impotence, spermatorrhea will manifest if both are not in harmony.  The liver and kidney are closely related in yin-yang.  The kidney yin nourishes the liver yin so as to restrict liver yang.  If the kidney yin fails to nourish liver yin, will lead to yin deficiency of both liver and kidney and result in overactive of liver yang. 12

13. Spleen and Kidney  The kidney is the root of innateness and the spleen is the root of acquirement.  Sound spleen functions are supported by kidney qi.  The abundance of essence-qi in the kidney also dependent upon the nourishment of foodstuff essence.  The kidney and spleen also affect each other pathologically, leading to the deficiency of both viscera.  If both suffer from qi deficiency, there may appear symptoms of abdominal distension, sloppy stool, soreness and coldness of the waist and knees, diarrhea at dawn, or diarrhea with undigested foodstuff. 13

14. Spleen and Kidney  The spleen distributes water to prevent effusion of water-dampness.  The kidney governs water to manage and regulate distribution and excretion of water.  They work with each other to maintain equilibrium of water metabolism.  If both suffer from deficiency, water-dampness stagnates internally, there may appear symptoms of oliguria, edema, abdominal distension, sloppy stool, soreness and weakness of the waist and knees. 14

15. Relationships among the Six Fu- viscera  The relationships among the six Fu-viscera are mainly manifested as association and cooperation in the process of digestion, absorption and transportation of foodstuff, and excretion of the waste as well.  After the stomach decomposed the foodstuff, it sent down into the small intestine.  After the small intestine separate the clear and turbid of the foodstuff, the clear is transported throughout the whole body by spleen.  The turbid is transported into the large intestine, becomes stools discharged out of the body. 15

16. Relationships among the Six Fu- viscera  The water permeating into the bladder and through qi transformation, turned out into urine to be discharged out of the above.  The above process is also dependent upon the gallbladder to excrete the bile to help digestion and the Sanjiao to sooth water passage ways to circulate water.  Rampancy of gallbladder fire may often invade the stomach to make it fail in normal descent of stomach qi, thus there appear symptoms like vomiting with bitter liquid.  If stomach heat consumes the liquid, it will lead to constipation with obstructed conveyance of the large intestine. 16

17. Relationships between Zang and Fu-viscera 17

18. Heart and Small Intestine  heart yang warms the small intestine in its reception and digestion of the foodstuff and its ability to separate the clear from the turbid.  The small intestine absorbs foodstuff essence and sends it up to the heart;  The heart turns the essence into blood to nourish the heart-vessels.  If heart fire gets hyperactive, the heat may be transported into the small intestine and symptoms of dysphoria, red tongue with sore, scanty urine will appear. 18

19. Lung and Large Intestine  The purification and descent of lung qi is conducive to the large intestine in conveyance of the waste.  The smooth conveyance by the large intestine is also beneficial to lung qi’s purification and descent.  If the lung qi fails in purification and descent, and the fluid cannot be sent down, then the liquid in the large intestine will be short and constipation due to intestinal dryness.  If the large intestine fails in smooth conveyance, and the intestine qi gets obstructed, it may also affect the diffusion and descent of lung qi to cause the symptoms of chest fullness, cough and panting. 19

20. Spleen and Stomach  The stomach belongs to yang and likes moisture and hates dryness.  The spleen belongs to yin and prefers dryness and hate dampness.  Only when dryness and dampness supplement each other, and yin and yang are harmonious, both the spleen and stomach can coordinate normally.  If the spleen is encumbered by dampness, spleen qi fails to ascend, and the deficient spleen qi will affect reception and descending of the stomach and appear symptoms of abdominal distension and diarrhea. 20

21. Liver and Gallbladder  The bile originates from the surplus qi of the liver.  The secretion and excretion of the bile are regulated and controlled by the liver’s function in governing free flow of qi.  The stagnation of liver qi will disturb the bile’s secretion and excretion.  If the gallbladder is invaded by dampness-heat, and the excretion of bile gets obstructed, it will affect the free flow of liver qi, dampness-heat in the liver and gallbladder, and blazing of liver and gallbladder fire.  The liver is in charge of deciding and the decision depends upon the gallbladder. 21

22. Kidney and Bladder  The function of the kidney in governing water is influenced by the bladder’s function in storing and discharging urine.  if the bladder functions abnormally in storing and discharging urine, it may affect the kidney’s function in qi transformation and controlling, manifesting as the changes of urine in color, quality and quantity.  If the kidney fails in qi transformation or controlling, there will appear disturbance for the bladder to store and discharge urine, manifested as scanty urine, incontinence of urine. 22