下工

xià gōng

The inferior physician · xia gong

Also rendered: the inferior physician (Keeps the grading sense of 下) · the lesser practitioner (Less pejorative, but also less clear about the contrast)

Core vocabulary

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin: xià gōng
Simplified: 下工
Literal: 下 is below, and 工 is the practitioner. 下工 is the physician who arrives after the fact: chapter 26 says twice what he rescues — what is already formed, what is already ruined — and then explains the mechanism of his failure, which is not clumsiness but ignorance of how the three regions and nine indicators lose their correspondence with one another. It is the less quoted half of the pair, and the more diagnostically precise.
Shuowen: 《說文解字》：下，底也。指事；工，巧飾也。象人有規榘也。下工謂醫之下者，其所治在已成、已敗之後。本篇之目：下工救其已成，救其已敗，救其已成者，言不知三部九𠉀之相失，因病而敗之也。

In brief

The physician who treats what has already formed and what is already ruined. Chapter 26 is unusually explicit about why this happens: he does not know how the three regions and nine indicators lose their correspondence, and so the disease does the ruining. The chapter closes the comparison with a sentence that is easy to read past — they do not know what is happening and only see the evil once it has a form — which is the exact difference: not worse hands, but a later hour.

Senses in the classical corpus

What he rescues 救其已成，救其已敗

所救在已成已敗之後

下工救其已成，救其已敗 — Suwen 26

Why he is late 不知三部九𠉀之相失

不知九候脉之不相應，故失其先見

言不知三部九𠉀之相失，因病而敗之也 — Suwen 26

What the disease then does 因病而敗之也

因循病勢，使正氣敗壞

因病而敗之也 — Suwen 26

Against the superior physician 上工救其萌牙

上工救於未形，下工救於已敗

上工救其萌牙，必先見三部九𠉀之氣 — Suwen 26

The closing verdict 莫知其情，而見邪形也

不知其情，唯待邪成形而後見

莫知其情，而見邪形也 — Suwen 26

What should have been known 守其門户焉

知病脉之處則守其門户，下工不知

知其所在者，知診三部九𠉀之病脉處而治之，故曰守其門户焉 — Suwen 26

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

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1 passages

素問·八正神明論 Suwen 26 · 八正神明論 Read in context →

下工救其已成，救其已敗，救其已成者，言不知三部九𠉀之相失，因病而敗之也。下工救其已成，救其已败，救其已成者，言不知三部九候之相失，因病而败之也。

Xià gōng jiù qí yǐ chéng, jiù qí yǐ bài, jiù qí yǐ chéng zhě, yán bù zhī sān bù jiǔ hòu zhī xiāng shī, yīn bìng ér bài zhī yě.

The inferior physician rescues what is already formed and rescues what is already ruined; and to rescue what is already formed means not knowing how the three regions and nine indicators lose their correspondence, and so letting the disease ruin the patient.

底本此句作「下工救其已成，救其已敗，救其已成者，言不知三部九𠉀之相失，因病而敗之也」，**「救其已成」一句重出而下文「救其已成者」申說之，疑為傳寫之衍，姑存底本之舊而著其疑**。「已」讀 yǐ；「成」讀 chéng；「失」讀 shī；「病」讀 bìng。下工之失不在手而在目：不知三部九候之脉「相失」，故待病已成形而後救之。「相失」謂九候之脉不相應，與第二十篇「三部九候皆相失者死」可互參——彼言其極，此言其始。下句「知其所在者，知診三部九𠉀之病脉處而治之，故曰守其門户焉」是正面說法：知病之所在則守其門户，邪無由入；下工不知所在，故其門不守。

Compounds built on this term

下工

xià gōng

the inferior physician

救其已成、救其已敗

上工

shàng gōng

the superior physician

本站本篇另立目，救其萌牙

相失

xiāng shī

losing correspondence

三部九候不相應，下工之所不知

因病而敗

yīn bìng ér bài

ruined by the disease

因循病勢而正氣敗

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

Wiseman & Feng	inferior physician	Wiseman keeps the pair superior/inferior, which is the standard reading of 上/下 as grades in the medical corpus.
Unschuld	physician of lower quality	Unschuld's expansion makes the judgement explicit but turns a technical grade into an insult.
This site	the inferior physician	The chapter itself is careful to give a reason rather than a reproach — the inferior physician does not know the correspondence of the nine indicators — so we keep the neutral grade rather than a word of blame.

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09

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