shàng gé
Also rendered: Above the diaphragm (literal, and it is a location) · Upper obstruction (clinical, and it loses the anatomy) · The upper diaphragm (wrong: 上 modifies the seat, not the organ)
Reviewed · 2026-10-25
At a glance
The first of the chapter’s two obstructions: qi is held above the diaphragm, so food and drink enter and return at once. Against it stands 下膈, the worm obstruction below the diaphragm, where food stays a full day before coming back. The pair is the chapter’s whole frame, and the difference between them is both speed and seat. The treatment that follows — pressing the abscess, shallow needling around it, warming with a hot compress, then bringing the grain down with salt and bitter — is one of the few complete procedures in the book.
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 | above the diaphragm | the seat as a name |
| Literal | upper diaphragm | exact, and it misleads |
| Clinical | high obstruction with immediate vomiting | clear, and interpretive |
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