Fox hernia · hu shan

At a glance

Pinyin

hú shàn

Simplified

狐疝

Literal

狐 hú — a fox; 疝 shàn — a rupture, a swelling that pushes out of where it belongs. A fox hernia is the rupture that behaves like the animal it is named for: it goes up and it goes down, it is there and then it is not, and it never stays in one place long enough to be caught. The chapter names it once, in the first of its six lines, and does not name it again: 厥陰有餘，病陰痺；不足，病生熱痺；滑則病狐疝風，濇則病少腹積氣. That line sets the shape of the five that follow — 有餘 gives one disease, 不足 gives another, a slippery pulse gives a third, a rough one gives a fourth — and the fox is the slippery branch of the first channel. 張介賓 gives the reason for the name in one sentence: 狐疝者，陰囊腫大，或上或下，時時變易，如狐之出沒不常，故名 — the sac swells, now up now down, changing from hour to hour, the way a fox comes and goes and is never where you last saw it.

Shuowen

**「狐」讀 hú，本篇1見，全站首見**；**「疝」讀 shàn，本篇6見**；**「狐疝」本篇1見，在「滑則病狐疝風」一句**；**本篇作「狐疝風」，較常稱多一「風」字，與下文五藏之「風疝」同一字例**；**本篇言疝者凡6見：「狐疝風」一見，「肺風疝」「脾風疝」「心風疝」「腎風疝」「肝風疝」各一見，皆在滑脉之變**；**《說文》：疝，腹痛也，从疒山聲，所晏切；《釋名·釋疾病》：疝，詵也，氣詵詵然上入而痛也**；**張介賓：狐疝者，陰囊腫大，或上或下，時時變易，如狐之出沒不常，故名**；**「厥」讀 jué，「陰」讀 yīn，「滑」讀 huá，「濇」讀 sè**；**「少腹」讀 shào fù；「積氣」讀 jī qì**