Bagang

The term Bagang ( Chinese 八綱 / 八纲 , Pinyin bā gāng ) ( transl .: "8 guiding criteria") describes eight diagnostic categories in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which consist of four opposing pairs and which are used to identify symptoms and classify disease findings.

Categories

Yin / yang

Yin and Yang ( Chinese 陰 / 阴 , Pinyin yīn , Chinese 陽 / 阳 , Pinyin yáng ) are general categories and can be applied to all phenomena. An imbalance of yin / yang is always seen as the cause of illness. Either one principle in the body is too strong and suppresses the other, or the environmental influences strengthen or weaken one of the two.

Xu / Shi

Xu ( Chinese 虛 / 虚 , Pinyin xū ) means a weakness of the body such as tiredness, depression, fatigue, slowed movements, tendency to collapse etc.

Shi ( Chinese 實 / 实 , Pinyin shí ), on the other hand, stands for an abundance of body energy, which is expressed as follows: acute pain, cramps, red face, nervousness, etc.

Li / Biao

Li ( Chinese 里 , Pinyin lǐ ) means an internal disorder of the organs with pain in the chest, stomach, nausea, diarrhea, fever, etc.

Biao ( Chinese 表 , Pinyin biǎo ) is an external disorder and manifests itself in pain in the joints and head. It is mostly caused by climatic factors, whereas Li disorders have psychological and nutritional causes.

表里辨证

Han / Re

Han ( Chinese 寒 , Pinyin hán ) is a cold disorder that occurs when the Qi is weakened. It is mainly about colds.

Re ( Chinese 熱 / 热 , Pinyin rè ) is a heat disorder and is caused by an overactivity of the Qi , which weakens all Yin components of the body.

寒热辨证

application

The doctor, who treats according to traditional Chinese medicine, assesses the individual symptoms in categories of what he believes is a disharmony of yin / yang in the organs or pathways ( jingluo ). He not only assesses the sum of the symptoms, but also their assumed cause and interprets them according to traditional ideas. In TCM, all aspects are distinguishable in yin and yang , which makes the system extremely complicated for outsiders.