lòu bìng
Also rendered: Leaking illness (this site; 漏 is the clepsydra's escape, not a lesion) · Drainage illness (literal, and it sounds like a treatment rather than a sign)
Reviewed · 2026-10-17
At a glance
漏病 is the lower half of a pair. 三陽并至, and the chapter gives two directions for the same convergence: 上爲巔疾，下爲漏病 — above it makes illness at the crown, below it makes leaking illness. The word 漏 is taken from the clepsydra, where water escapes through a marked opening at a measured rate; the illness is named for that Escape, and 王冰 glosses it as 泄注, a pouring discharge. What matters for reading the chapter is the pairing rather than the identification of the organ: the same 并至 produces a sign at the top and a sign at the bottom, and neither is the disease itself. The chapter immediately adds that the condition has 外無期，内無正 — no fixed season outside, no fixed position within — which is why a name taken from a leaking vessel fits better than the name of any one viscus.
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 | leaking illness | keeps the vessel and the loss, and leaves the organ unnamed as the chapter does |
| Literal | the leaking disease | exact, and the definite article makes it sound like one established entity |
| Descriptive | loss of what should be retained below | clear, and it drops the pair with 巔疾 |
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