Internal organs, from the Daoist Canon, 15th century Chinese

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Internal organs, from the Daoist Canon, 15th century Chinese. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

Woodblock illustration from Zhengtong daozang (Daoist Canon compiled during the Zhengtong reign period [1436-1449] of the Ming Dynasty), depicting the 'internal topography' (neijing) of the human body from the front and back view. The frontal view (on the right) shows the positions of the anterior internal organs: the throat (through which jing essence ascends and Qi descends), the larynx, the lungs, the heart, the gall bladde, the spleen, the stomach,the huangmen (Vitals Portal, between the heart and the diaphragm), the pylorus, the small intestine, the large intestine (the 'nine coils' of the large and small intestine), the guanmen (Pass Portal) and the bladder. The back view (on the left) shows the positions of the posterior internal organs: the stomach cavity (possibly an error), the lungs, the spleen, the stomach, the subhepatic area, the [left] kidney, the 'Portal of Life' (mingmen, anatomically the right kidney), and the 'Portal of the Po Soul' (pomen, the anus).

Lettering

Internal topography, front view (neijing zhengmian tu); Internal topography, back view (neijing beigmian tu Yanhou (throat); jiehou (larynx); fei (lungs); pi (spleen); xin (heart); gan (liver); dan (gall bladder); xiaochang (small intestine); youmen (pylorus); dachang (large intestine); pangguang (bladder); da xiao chang jiu pan (nine coils of the large and small intestines)

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