The Theoretical Research Of Spleen Based On Xiang Thinking

Objective:Xiang thinking is the main thought of Chinese traditionalculture, which is the original thinking of traditional Chinesemedicine. Under the conditions of the limited level oftechnological development, it becomes an important kind of thinkingstyle that understanding the objective world, and plays animportant role in the formation and development of every disciplineespecially in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). However, underthe impact of the western medicine, the old way of thinkinggradually fade out the sight of people, people gradually explainthe traditional Chinese medicine with the thinking way of westernmedicine. This thesis aims to study xiang thinking, and cause theattention of traditional Chinese medicine learner with xiangthinking. We should return to xiang thinking and classics, as wellas absorb the excellent results of western medicine, science andphilosophy, develop traditional Chinese medicine on the basis ofmaintaining the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine.Method:Based onthe method of literature compilation,thisthesisconsults the ancient and modern literature about xiang thinking anddiscusses the general research situation of xiang thinking. By combining with the theory of xiang thinking, we analyze the theoryformation and material basis of visceral manifestation of spleenwith xiang thinking.Result:This thesis includes two parts: the first part is the review ofxiang thinking; the second part is the application of xiang thinkingin the visceral manifestation of spleen.The first part is the review of xiang thinking. Firstly, wediscuss the connotation and classification of xiang thinking. Theconnotation of xiang thinking is very rich, this thesis lists tenkinds of meaning: the xiang of elephant, the xiang of sky, the xiangof appearance, the xiang of object, the xiang of pulse, the xiangof figure, the xiang of trigrams, the xiang of image, like, symbol.The connotation of xiang is far more than ten kinds. According themeaning of xiang, the xiang is divided into the following fourcategories: the xiang of object, the xiang of function, comparativestate, the xiang of model. The xiang of object includes the xiangof seeing, the xiang of listening and smelling, the xiang ofpalpation, the xiang of feeling. The xiang of model includes themodel of Yin and Yang, the model of five elements, the model of yiand number, the model of heavenly stems and earthly branches.Secondly, the thesis discusses the connotation and application ofxiang thinking. The thinking method of “xiang” is the mostprimitive thinking of China and even the world. The concept of"xiang thinking" is put forward by Wang Shuren in the1980s. Thexiang thinking is the thinking method of analyzing the relationshipbetween things or recognizing the unknown things, which is builton the basis of acquiring the “xiang” of nature, then set up the xiang model, taking the“xiang”into analogy according to the xiangmodel.The specific steps include: xiang abstracting fromviewing, setup xiang model, comparative state, xiang for expression.Xiang thinking is the original thought of Chinese traditionalculture, is the wisdom of laboring people in China, is the importantmethod to know the world, which helped to develop the ancientastronomy, geography, music, agriculture, medicine and divinationareas. Nowadays, xiang thinking is also widely used in literature,aesthetics, pedagogy, management and other fields. Xiang thinkinggoes through the traditional Chinese medicine, which plays a vitalrole in the formation and development of traditional Chinesemedicine.The second part is the application of xiang thinking in thevisceral manifestation of spleen. Firstly, we discuss theapplication of xiang thinking in the theory formation of thevisceral manifestation of spleen. The ancients related the xiangof human anatomy and the physiology and pathology with the fiveelements of the soil according to the process which food transforminto qi and blood. It has been formed the system of the visceralmanifestation of spleen, which is spleen-centered and contact soil,stomach, thought, meat, limbs, mouth, salivary, long summer, sweet,etc.Secondly we discuss the application of xiang thinking in thephysical basis of visceral manifestation of spleen. We bring thephysical basis which has similar function into the visceralmanifestation of spleen according to the openness and functionalfeatures of xiang thinking. It has been formed thedigestive-system-centered and contact material metabolism, energymetabolism, blood system, immune system, nervous system. Then we collect modern experimental research about the spleen of TCM whichpublished in the medical journal over the past15years. We count157biological indicators, which involve the digestive system,immune system, blood system, substance metabolism and energymetabolism system, nervous system, endocrine system, cell signaltransduction and cell apoptosis, etc., the highest frequencyresearch is the digestive system. We compare statistical resultsof documents research with the results derived of xiang thinking.It is found that the modern material basis of spleen derived of theabove two methods are very similar, however, the results derivedof xiang thinking are more holistic and relative.Conclusion:Xiang thinking is the traditional thinking of Chinese culture,which plays an important role in the originate and development oftraditional Chinese medicine. By the research of a vast amount ofliterature, we find that xiang thinking not only explains theformation of traditional Chinese medicine theory, but also has agood guiding significance to the modern development of traditionalChinese medicine. Xiang thinking is the important foundation oftraditional Chinese medicine which keeps the characteristic oftraditional Chinese medicine to develop.