Hidden beam · fu liang

At a glance

Pinyin

fú liáng

Simplified

伏梁

Literal

伏 fú — to lie low, to be hidden, to lie prostrate; 梁 liáng — a beam, the horizontal timber that carries a roof. The name pictures something lying crosswise and out of sight inside the belly. Chapter 40 names it twice, and the two are not the same illness: the first wraps a mass of pus and blood outside the bowel and cannot be pressed at all — press it and the patient dies; the second has wind at its root, overflows into the large intestine and fixes itself in the huang, and must not be moved, for moving it turns it into an illness of blocked urine. What unites them is that both are defined by what the hand must not do, and both are placed by the navel: above it the illness goes against the grain, below it the illness follows. Later texts use 伏梁 for a variety of abdominal masses, but the chapter's own point is narrower and more practical — there are swellings in the belly that treatment makes worse.

Shuowen

《說文解字》：伏，司也——**本義為伺候、為俯伏**；梁，水橋也——**本義為水上之橋，引申為凡橫亙而負重者**。「伏」讀 fú、**本篇3見**；「梁」讀 liáng、**本篇5見，皆讀 liáng**——**「伏梁」3見，「高粱」之「梁」亦此字**，**同形而一為病名、一為穀食之精者**。**「裹」（「裹」讀 guǒ）大膿血**、「居腸胃之外」，**是其形與其位**；**「齊」（「齊」讀 qí）者，寫「臍」**，**居齊上為逆、居齊下為從，本篇5見**。