Concept and nature of Five Elements
In the classic book of Chinese Medicine, yin and yang breaks into Five Elements. Everything and their condition has been named after Five Elements which are wood, fire, earth, metal and water and also has been symbolized accordingly.
Sang-seng (generating sequence) and Sang-guk (controlling sequence) in Five Elements is a theory that explains rule of movement of universe through harmonizing and conflicting relationship of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). Yin and yang represents order of movement through homeostasis.
Medical meaning and its applications of Yin and Yang and Five Elements
The purpose of establishing philosophical meaning of Yin and Yang and Five Elements is to give credibility of usage and of it’s concept in medical field. This will also help you understand that this is not just old wives tale but it is based on science.
Following are some examples:
1. When you study the component and ingredient of herb and you discovered that one of the ingredients will stop diarrhea, then there must be another ingredient within that herb that will make you have diarrhea. When you look at the research study of astragalus root (Hwang-gi) and its effect on immunity level, they have conflicting results. One of the researchers said that it improves your immunity level and another researcher said that it suppresses the immunity level. If these researchers understood the relativity of yin and yang this kind of conflicting results would have been avoided.
2. In the study of effects of acupuncture, the needle has positive electricity effect whereas the skin tissue has negative electricity effect. According to relativity of yin and yang, and it has been proven, that there must be an opposite effect as well. Such as, the needle can have negative electricity effect and the skin tissue can have positive electricity effect. (Miracle effect of acupuncture and moxibution 1995, pg 35)
3. Sympathetic nerve system contracts your blood vessel. But according to the view of yin and yang, there must be expansion of your blood vessel in sympathetic nerve system as well. In reality, when sympathetic nerve system is triggered, regular blood vessel contracts but coronary artery is expanded. This is because when sympathetic nerve system is stimulated the heart is working harder and it needs to receive enough nutrient to sustain its hard work.
4. There is yin and yang relationship between motor nerve and autonomic nerve. To be more specific, motor nerve can be divided into efferent nerve (yin) and centrifugal nerve (yang). Autonomic nerve can be divided into sympathetic nerve (yang) and parasympathetic nerve (yin).
Motor nerve can be divided into five element sequences. It divides into receive (wood), efferent (fire), central nerve (earth), centrifugal (metal), and effect (water). Autonomic nerve also divides into five element sequences such as sympathetic nerve stimulation (wood), positive factor (fire), climax (earth), parasympathetic nerve stimulation (metal), negative factor (water). Through this pathway of Five Elements, homeostasis is maintained.
5. When you look at the cycle of protein control, excitement of parasympathetic nerve reduces thyroxine excretion (wood) and that increase assimilation (fire). When it reaches its climax (earth), it stimulates sympathetic nerve which accelerates tyroxine (metal) excretion and increases the strength of catabolism of the protein (water). If you understand the biological functions of these five elements and its generating (sang-seng) and controlling sequences (sang-guk), it is easier to determine where the disruption of that chain is and figure out how to help a patient.
Update date: 4/08/2008
Author: Dr. Sool Kim
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