Looking through a children's picture encyclopedia with my 6-years old at his bed time. The page was on digestion system. We were looking at a picture of a child with the drawing of the whole digestive system superimpose on it. We had a good giggle about which end the food goes in and which end it comes out.
We explored into details of how the food goes in the mouth, into the stomach, then to very long and wriggly small intestine... then I just could not believe why I didn't think of this before...
In Chinese Medicine theory, internal organ systems are classified into 5 types, using 5 Elements to symbolise it - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.
It is easy to understand that Liver/Gall Bladder (Wood), Spleen/Stomach (Earth) and Kidney/Bladder (Water) are in the same categories. They are in similar anatomic position and doing similar jobs. It is more intriguing that Heart and Small Intestine are classified in Fire, Lung and Large Intestine in Metal.
The heart is located in the chest whilst the small intestine is in the abdomen. One is part of the circulating system and one is digestive. One can see why Heart is associated with the Fire Element - symbolising energy and life source. The association with Small Intestine is not so obvious.
The picture in the book draws it out. Pushing food along 5 metres of wriggly organ requires an IMMENSE amount of energy and is no less of a job than pumping blood through the whole body! No other internal organs do such energetic work than the heart and small intestine!
0 comments:
Post a Comment