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.
wěi
The unit in which chapter 41 counts needle insertions: one insertion, one wei. The word began as the sore a needle leaves, and the chapter's prescriptions are written in it — two wei here, three wei there, and at the end a number taken from the moon.
quán héng
How this chapter says to treat oedema: 平治於權衡 — level it by weighing. The image is a pair of scales and the instruction is not a prescription but a manner: weigh what is in excess against what is deficient and take from one to give to the other. What follows in the text is the weighing itself — remove the accumulation, cut the old, move the limbs, keep the clothing warm, needle across — and the balance is struck when the five yang are distributed and the essence generates itself.
suǒ shèng suǒ bù shèng
The criterion on which the whole prognostic tradition later worked, given here in eight words: 行所不勝曰逆，逆則死；行所勝曰從，從則活. A disease travelling into the organ that conquers it kills; a disease travelling into the organ it conquers can be lived through. The chapter is applying this to the pulse, read from the greater yin; later chapters apply it to the seasons and the five-phase cycles of chapter 9. It is the same reasoning as chapter 7's account of how illness passes from organ to organ.
yào shí yí
The prescription that ends every year of the table: 其化上苦熱，中酸和，下甘熱，所謂藥食宜也. The upper qi is the 司天, the middle is the year's 運, the lower is the 在泉, and each is given a flavour (苦、酸、甘、辛、鹹) and a character (熱、和、温、涼、寒) — the two together being what to give the viscus that the qi is oppressing. The phrase is used thirty times, once for each pair of years, and it is the chapter's practical end: everything before it, the six qi and their governance, arrives here at a prescription that a practitioner can write. 食 is in the phrase for a reason — in this method the same reckoning governs the table as governs the medicine chest.
gāo zhě yì zhī
The first of the clauses in which the chapter states treatment as a series of verbs: 帝曰：善。治之柰何？歧伯曰：高者抑之，下者舉之，有餘折之，不足補之，佐以所利，和以所宜，必安其主客，適其寒温，同者逆之，異者從之. What is high is pressed down and what is low is raised: the pair is not about the disease's seat in the body but about the direction of its aim, and the answer is to move against it. The run of clauses is deliberately mixed — three pairs of contraries (高下、有餘不足、同異), two general instructions (佐以所利、和以所宜), and one about the year (必安其主客) — so that the passage reads as the whole of treatment in ten verbs, and it is closed by the sentence from which 正治 and 反治 are drawn: 同者逆之，異者從之.
bìng zhī cháng
The last of the eight categories, and by far the longest: four paragraphs, each running through the six qi and naming what each does to a man. The first gives the symptoms that begin diseases — 厥陰所至，爲裏急；少陰所至，爲瘍胗、身熱；太陰所至，爲積飲、否隔；少陽所至，爲嚏嘔，爲瘡瘍；陽明所至，爲浮虚；太陽所至，爲屈伸不利，病之常也. The second gives the seat of the pain, the third the orifices and the sweat, the fourth what the qi does to the bowels and the skin. Together they are the point at which the chapter's account of the year becomes an account of the patient, and they are the last thing said before the summary: 凡此十二變者，報德以德，報化以化.
lìng xíng zhī cháng
The eighth of the eight categories. Its paragraph gives each qi a shape it imposes on things: 厥陰所至，爲撓動，爲迎隨；少陰所至，爲高明、焰、爲曛；太陰所至，爲沈陰，爲白埃，爲晦暝；少陽所至，爲光顯，爲彤雲，爲曛；陽明所至，爲煙埃，爲霜，爲勁切，爲悽鳴；太陽所至，爲剛固，爲堅芒，爲立，令行之常也. Where 布政 said what had been made, 令行 says what has been enforced: bent or straightened, made hard or made to stand. It is the last of the regularities, and the three paragraphs that follow it turn to what all this does to a man.
sī huà zhī cháng
The second of the eight categories. Its paragraph gives each qi a place, not a quality: 厥陰所至爲風府，爲璺啓；少陰所至爲火府，爲舒榮；太陰所至爲雨府，爲員盈；少陽所至爲熱府，爲行出；陽明所至爲司殺府，爲庚蒼；太陽所至爲寒府，爲歸藏，司化之常也. Six 府, six conditions that follow from the office — the wind's place and its breaking open, the cold's place and its storing away. The word 司 is the chapter's own: it uses it of the year's governing qi (司天) and of the 運 (司氣), and here of each qi's charge over a place in the body's weather.
qì biàn zhī cháng
The seventh of the eight categories, and the hinge of the passage. Its paragraph gives each qi a storm: 厥陰所至爲飄怒太涼，少陰所至爲大暄寒，太陰所至爲雷霆驟注烈風，少陽所至爲飄風燔燎霜凝，陽明所至，爲散落温，太陽所至，爲寒雪、冰雹、白埃，氣變之常也. Read against 時化之常 four paragraphs earlier, the same six qi are given twice: once as the season's ordinary weather and once as its violence. What makes the passage a whole is that the chapter calls both of them 常 — the storm is as regular as the calm, and both are to be expected of the qi in its own season.
qì huà zhī cháng
The third of the eight categories. Its paragraph gives each qi a verb of growth or rest: 厥陰所至爲生，爲風摇；少陰所至爲榮，爲形見；太陰所至爲化，爲雲雨；少陽所至爲長，爲蕃鮮；陽明所至爲收，爲霧露；太陽所至爲藏，爲周密，氣化之常也. The six are the life-cycle of the year in order — birth, bloom, transformation, growth, harvest, storage — each with the weather that shows it. The category is what the chapter has been describing from its first page: the working of the qi, seen now in the single season each of the six calls its own.
dé huà zhī cháng
The fourth of the eight categories, and the one that takes two paragraphs. The first gives the beginning and the end of each qi's work: 厥陰所至爲風生，終爲肅；少陰所至爲熱生，中爲寒；太陰所至爲濕生，終爲注雨；少陽所至爲火生，終爲蒸溽；陽明所至爲燥生，終爲涼；太陽所至爲寒生，中爲温，德化之常也 — each qi generating its own thing and then turning into the next. The second gives the five classes of creature that each qi brings along: 厥陰所至爲毛化，少陰所至爲羽化，太陰所至爲倮化，少陽所至爲羽化，陽明所至爲介化，太陽所至爲鱗化，德化之常也. Together they are the chapter's one statement of what the qi does without being provoked.
shí huà zhī cháng
The first of the eight categories that the closing passage uses. Its paragraph runs 厥陰所至爲和平，少陰所至爲暄，太陰所至爲埃溽，少陽所至爲炎暑，陽明所至爲清勁，太陽所至爲寒雰，時化之常也 — six clauses, one for each qi, and the last names what the six together are: the season's ordinary transformation. The category is 常, not 變: what each qi does in the season that belongs to it, with nothing added and nothing held back. Against it the passage will set the 氣變之常, where the same six are given their storms.