Each entry gives the term in traditional and simplified form, its pinyin, the senses it carries in the classical corpus, the passages where it does real work, and how published translations have rendered it.
yì
The pharynx — the passage at the back of the throat, and specifically the place that the foot Taiyin vessel networks as it rises. Chapter 29 names it once, in the sentence that answers the chapter's last question: Taiyin's vessel penetrates the stomach, belongs to the spleen and networks the pharynx, and it is through that vessel, not through the membrane, that the spleen can move the stomach's fluids. The chapter's careful separation of 喉, 咽 and 嗌 — airway, gullet, and the site the vessel reaches — is the earliest clear statement of the distinction in the literature.
chè yī
Piercing the clothes is the fourth of the five joints. Its case is a man whose yang is in excess and whose yin is not enough: within, heat; without, heat; 内𤍠相摶，𤍠於懷炭 — the heat is like carrying coals, so that he cannot bear cloth next to him nor sit on a mat, the seams of the skin are shut and no sweat comes, the tongue is scorched, the lips dry, the throat parched, and he no longer cares whether his food is good. The method is to pierce all the extraordinary transports of the yang — 盡刺諸陽之奇輸 — a set of points with no fixed place, together with 天府 and 大杼 three times each, 中膂 to take the heat away, and the foot and hand greater yin filled to stop the sweat. When the heat goes and the sweat thins, the cure is quicker than taking off a coat: 疾於徹衣.
dòng xīn
What too much acrid food does to the heart region: the acrid qi rises and lingers below the heart, the camp and defence cannot receive it in season, and the centre feels hollow, as if pierced. 洞 carries both senses at once — a cavity and a passage — and both are wanted here: the sensation is emptiness and the mechanism is a forced opening. It is the exact counterpart of 悗心, the stifled heart that sweet food produces: one hollows, the other blocks.
chuán huà zhī fǔ
Stomach, large intestine, small intestine, triple burner and bladder. They are born of the qi of heaven, their qi images heaven — which in this chapter means one thing only, that it does not stop — and therefore they discharge and do not store. They take in the turbid qi the organs are finished with and carry it out. Wang Bing: the dregs are changed and passed out, they cannot be held long within, but once transformed must be transmitted and discharged.
fēn lǐ
Where the chapter says the needle goes, in every season but at different depths: 及與分理 in spring, 循理 in autumn, 於分理 in winter. It is the same word that gives 腠理, the interstices of the skin, from chapter 1 onwards. The chapter's point is that the seams of the body are the map — you follow them, you do not measure your way in.
pò
The soul that is tied to the body, and in this chapter the thing left behind when the yang is gone: 其魄獨居 — its po dwells alone. The phrase says, without saying it, that the patient is as good as dead: the yang has left and only the corporeal soul remains, keeping the body company by itself. The same word gives 魄門, the gate of the po, in chapter 11.
rán gǔ
The projecting bone — 然 rán, the first half of the name 然谷; 骨 gǔ, a bone — and 王冰 identifies it without hedging: 然骨之前，然谷穴也。在足内踝前起大骨下陷者中，足少陰滎出. It is the bone that rises in front of the inner ankle, and the point below it takes its name from it. This chapter names it three times, never alone — always 然骨之前 — and always as the place to bleed when the foot lesser yin network is the trouble: once for sudden heart pain with swelling, once for the man who has fallen and is holding blood, once for a throat too swollen to swallow spit. Every one of the three ends the same way, with blood and with time: 如食頃而已, 出血立已. Later numbering makes 然谷 the second point of the kidney channel; the chapter uses no numbers, only a bone that can be felt and a hollow under it. The word has not appeared in any chapter transcribed on this site before.