fǎn zhì
Also rendered: Contrary treatment (this site; 反 is the direction of the approach, and the chapter's own gloss is 從, running with the disease) · Paradoxical treatment (familiar in modern writing, and it makes the term sound like a contradiction rather than a manoeuvre)
Reviewed · 2026-10-14
At a glance
Treatment that runs with the disease rather than against it, and the chapter’s longest exposition of a single term: 帝曰：反治何謂？歧伯曰：熱因寒用，寒因熱用，塞因塞用，通因通用，必伏其所主，而先其所因，其始則同，其終則異，可使破積，可使潰堅，可使氣和，可使必已. The four clauses are the whole of it: a disease of heat is met with what its heat comes from, a blockage is met with what blocks, a flux with what flows — the medicine agrees with the symptom so that it can reach the cause, and only then turns against it. The chapter’s own sentence for this is 其始則同，其終則異, the beginning the same and the end different, and it is why the term is named with 正治 in one breath: 逆者，正治，從者，反治. Its practical form appears later as 諸寒之而熱者，取之陰；熱之而寒者，取之陽，所謂求其屬也.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | contrary treatment | agreeing with the disease in order to reach its cause, with four named cases and the rule 其始則同，其終則異 |
| Literal | reversed treatment | exact about 反, and it does not say reversed from what |
| Descriptive | treating a disease from the side it is on | clear, and it loses the word the chapter names three times |
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