The five divisions · wu bu

In brief

The five divisions of the five viscera, and the condition in which they can no longer be read. The chapter says 五部隔無徵 — the five divisions are cut off and show no sign — and then describes what that feels like to the physician: 若居曠野，若伏空室，緜緜乎屬不滿日, like a man in a waste, like one crouching in an empty room, drawn out thin and hardly lasting the day. The five divisions are the regions by which the viscera are located and read; when they are blocked, the signs that should appear at the surface do not appear, and the pulse gives nothing to hold. The phrase 別五中部 later in the chapter is the same scheme narrowed to the middle: the physician must still distinguish the five parts.