An Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels: The Brain

An Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels: The Brain

The following is an excerpt on the brain is from Will Ceurvels’ ‘An Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels’ by Purple Cloud Press. It elucidates aspects of the brain spanning across Chinese medicine and Daoism. The following passage is from III. The Brain as a Vast Intra-cranial, Extra-channel Space and High Nexus of the Circulatory System.

His book can be ordered here!

The modern Chinese medical understanding of the brain is as the sea of marrow, but in the time of the Inner Canon, this would only have been one of several conceptual framings. Thus, Simple Questions states:

《素問· 解精微論》泣涕者，腦也…… 故腦滲為涕。
Simple Questions Ch. 81: Tears and nasal mucous derive from the brain. The nasal mucous seeps from within the brain.

How is it that tears and mucous can emerge from the brain, which supposedly only contains marrow? Spiritual Pivot Ch. 36 advances the idea that “body fluids” like sweat, urine, tears and marrow are all just different iterations of fluid as it circulates to different parts
of the body. Thus:

歧伯曰：水穀皆入于口，其味有五，各注其海。津液各走其道，故三焦出氣，以溫肌肉，充皮膚，為其津；其留而不行者，為液。天暑衣厚則腠理開，故汗出：寒留於分肉之間，聚沫則為痛。天寒則腠理閉，氣濕不行，水下留於膀胱，則為溺與氣…… 五穀之津液，和合而為膏者，內滲入于骨空，補益腦髓。
Qi Bo replied: Water and grain all enter via the mouth, they have five flavors, each of which pours into its respective ocean. The fluids all circulate along their respective pathways, thus the qi that the triple burner outthrusts to warm the muscles and fill the skin is called liquid; the fluid that remains and doesn’t circulate is called humor. When wearing heavy clothes in warm weather, the interstices open and sweat emerges; When cold evil lodges in the seams of the flesh, [fluid] congeals into foam causing pain. In cold weather, the interstices close, qi and dampness stagnate, and water flows down into the bladder, [producing] urine and qi … The fluid of the five grains combines to form a thick greasy fluid which seeps into the bone cavities and supplements the brain marrow.

In this theory of body fluid, sweat, urine and marrow are all just manifestations of fluid which take on different forms depending on the specific conditions in which they arise in the body. Indeed, not only do sweat, urine, marrow etc., all derive from fluid, they are also all interconnected via the “qi pathways” circulating wei qi and fluid throughout the body. Thus, Spiritual Pivot Ch. 36 continues:

陰陽氣道不通，四海閉塞，三焦不瀉，津液不化。
When the yin and yang qi pathways are blocked, the four seas become occluded, the triple burner fails to drain, and fluids cannot transform.

Here, interruptions in the triple burner/membrane circulation of fluid lead to occlusion in the four seas, of which the brain is one. This particular conceptualization envisages the four seas as collecting points in a general fluid circulation. Given this understanding, it is easy to see how Han dynasty medical theoreticians could have imagined that mucous and tears flowed from the brain, and, furthermore, that the brain was not just a sea of marrow, but an important collecting point or pole in the circulation of fluid throughout the body. We see a similar notion in Daoist texts, for instance in the Song dynasty compendium the Dao Pivot (道樞) it states:

夫腦者，一身之靈也，百神之命窟，津液之山源也。
The brain is the seat of the spirit and the high mountain spring of the body’s fluid.

Another section in the Dao Pivot goes so far as to call the brain the “ocean of blood”:

《道樞· 卷五》純陽子曰：孰為泥丸？其狀何如也？正陽子曰：此血之海也，其別九房…… 其中一房有血焉，其名曰血海。

Dao Pivot, (Scroll Five): Master Chun Yang asked: What is the mud pill? How is it structured? Master Zheng Yang replied: It is the sea of blood and contains nine chambers … one of these chambers has blood. It is called the blood sea.