Anatomical drawing: the lungs and heart nexus, Chinese MS

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Anatomical drawing: the lungs and heart nexus, Chinese MS. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Ink drawing from a MS of the Qing period (1644-1911). The artist sets out to give visual expression to the doctrine, from Huangdi neijing (Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor), that 'there are two heart nexuses (xinxi)'. Lingmen chuanshou tongren zhixue (The Lofty Portal Teaching Manual of Acupoints on the Bronze Figurine) states: There are two heart nexuses: one ascends to connect with the lungs; the other passes from the heart into one of the two large lobes of the lungs, curls round to the back where it links with the fine network of the spine, passes through the spinal marrow (jisui, spinal cord), and connects with the kidney nexus (shenxi). This is one of the ancient doctrines of the heart nexus.

Lettering

IMAGE TITLE: The lung nexus may be seen on the right below the lung. OTHER LETTERING: Yanhou (throat); feixi (lung nexus); jiehou (Adam's apple); weixi (stomach nexus); xinxi (heart nexus); Qi jie (Seven Connections); jisui ('spinal marrow', spinal cord); pixi (spleen nexus); ganxi (liver nexus); benmen (cardia).

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