Classica Sinica Medica

消渴

xiāo kě

Xiao ke · wasting and thirsting

Also rendered: Xiao ke (this site; the pinyin is kept because 消渴 became a fixed disease name and is still that name in Chinese medicine) · Wasting and thirsting (the plain rendering, used wherever the two graphs are being read rather than named)

Pathology

Reviewed · 2026-09-30

At a glance

Pinyin
xiāo kě
Simplified
消渴
Literal
消渴 xiāo kě — where the sweet mouth ends. 消 is the flesh wasting away, 渴 the thirst that drinking does not answer, and chapter 47 sets them at the end of a chain it has taken care to build: fat makes heat within, sweetness makes the centre full, the qi overflows upward, and the illness turns into this. The chapter's other name for the same condition is 消癉, and this site keeps the two apart because the graphs differ.
Shuowen
《說文解字》：消，盡也，从水肖聲；渴，盡也，从水曷聲。「消」讀 xiāo、「渴」讀 kě、**各本篇惟此一見**；**本站第八百七十一目「消癉」（讀 xiāo dān）與此同實而異名，字不从疒**。

In brief

Wasting with unquenchable thirst, reached in chapter 47 by a route worth following: rich food makes internal heat, sweet food makes the centre full, and the qi that overflows upward turns into this. It is the end of the spleen dan, and the chapter treats it with a single herb, lan, whose work is to remove the stale qi.

Senses in the classical corpus

1
The graph 消渴
消者消爍肌肉，渴者飲水不止
轉爲消渴 — Suwen 47
2
What precedes it 肥者令人内熱
肥腻生内熱
肥者令人内熱 — Suwen 47
3
What precedes it 甘者令人中滿
甘味令中焦脹滿
甘者令人中滿 — Suwen 47
4
How it comes about 其氣上溢
熱滿之氣上溢，轉為消渴
故其氣上溢，轉爲消渴 — Suwen 47
5
How it is treated 治之以蘭
蘭草一味，除其陳氣
治之以蘭，除陳氣也 — Suwen 47
6
The older name 消癉
本站第八百七十一目「消癉」與此同實而異名
轉爲消渴 — Suwen 47

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

Display
1 passages
Suwen 47 Suwen 47 · 奇病論 Read in context →
肥者令人内熱，甘者令人中滿，故其氣上溢，轉爲消渴。治之以蘭，除陳氣也。 肥者令人内热，甘者令人中满，故其气上溢，转为消渴。治之以兰，除陈气也。
Féi zhě lìng rén nèi rè, gān zhě lìng rén zhōng mǎn, gù qí qì shàng yì, zhuǎn wéi xiāo kě. Zhì zhī yǐ lán, chú chén qì yě.
Fat makes a person hot within; sweetness makes the centre full. Therefore the qi overflows upward and turns into wasting and thirsting. Treat it with lan, to remove the stale qi.
**「轉爲消渴」——**「消」讀 xiāo、「渴」讀 kě、**各本篇惟此一見**；「蘭」讀 lán、**本篇惟此一見**；**肥者内熱、甘者中滿二句，為消渴之來路**。

Compounds built on this term

消渴
xiāo kě
wasting and thirsting
脾癉之轉歸
消癉
xiāo dān
the same illness under its older name
本站第八百七十一目
内熱
nèi rè
internal heat
肥之所生
中滿
zhōng mǎn
fullness of the centre
甘之所生

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

This sitexiao kekept in pinyin, so that the name is not lost in a description of its two symptoms
Unschuldwasting and thirstinghe reads the two graphs separately
Wisemanwasting and thirstingthe rendering his system uses for the pair

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09-30

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Reading path

Guided routes through the corpus, each built on a handful of chapters and their key terms.

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