In American middle schools, children learn that stomach is on the left side of your body and liver on the right, lungs in the upper chest and the heart deep under your left bosom. The belly is stuffed with two kinds of intestines, large and small. That is the first thing they learn about the human body in science class. And that is the basis of human life in Korean Medicine also. The body is made by the five Jang and six Bu organs, head, arms and legs follow. With the exception of the head(!), in conventional Western Medicine, too, one can live without limbs but something has to replace an organ if it is malfunctioning. One cannot live liverless! Let us discuss the important organs in the following translation of an excerpt from Dr. Park Chan Guk(now at Hamsoa Clinic)'s Special Lectures on Korean Medicine.

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It is said that the five Jang organs keep hidden the five spirits. Then how is the physiology of the five Jang organs in Korean Medicine different from that of Western Medicine, and why is it so? Let us discuss the functions of the five Jang organs in terms of root, stem and leaf in a tree.

In Korean Medicine (and the Far Eastern Medicine) the Kidneys and Heart are sorted as small Eum and called 'Closed' in expert terms. 'Closed' means they keep the Ki hidden, and the root of a tree has a similar function. Therefore, from the five Jang organs, the kidneys and heart have the function of root. Liver is called the 'Hinge,' meaning it helps open and close the door like a hinge. Compared to a tree it is like the stem that is in between the root and leaf. And Lungs and Spleen are great Eum, 'Open' in medical language. 'Open' means spread out like the leaves in a tree. People who studied Western Physiology will find this concept hard to understand. They may disregard it as non-medical blarney. But when one thinks more about it, this concept of the bodily functions may make more sense.


The individual roles in a family may be explained in many different ways. Parents can be thought as the ones who earn money, or ones who lead the family. Some may think grand parents are useless old beings, but others may think of them as the spiritual guides. Also, children can be nuisances who just waste money but they are also the bright young people who will carry on the family name. In other words, parents are like a stem who link grandparents and children, grandparents are like the root that only gives everything to their children and grandchildren, and children are like the leaves that grow from nutrients received from the stem and root. Of course, there are times when the leaf makes nutrients and send them to the stem and roots. But just like children living under the care of parents at first, leaves get help from the root of a tree. There is a similar relationship in the five Jang organs. To retain life, the Kidneys and Heart must start functioning first. Like a car needing battery and electricity to start, human bodies need Ki in Kidneys and Heart can accumulate Ki with human activity. Then do Kidneys and Heart, both having small Eum property, have the same role too? There are similarities, but they each have a different role. One way of dividing the Eum and Yang in bodily organs is dividing them with the diaphragm as the line. The Jang organs above the diaphragm have Yang characteristic and those under the diaphragm have Eum characteristic. In fact, Heart and Lungs, which are above the diaphragm, distribute nutrients and the organs below the diaphragm digest, absorb and excrete. The lower part of the body is producer and the upper part is consumer. So although they are the same small Eum, Kidneys and Heart are from different backgrounds and they have different roles. Since Kidneys act as producer, they help the stomach digest food with their own energy. Digesting food is in other words rotting it, and to make food rot quickly body has to keep a high temperature. Kidneys do the job. They heat the intestines like fire under the pot. But the Kidneys need not to heat the intestines all the while they are digesting. Man is the ultimately intricate machine and the intestines make their own heat with just the initial trigger.


Just like Kidneys sending heat to the Spleen, Heart transfers blood to the Lungs. Exchange of gas takes place in the Lungs. Of course, not only the Lungs exchange gas. Skin all over the body also does the task. That is why skin is taken as a part of the Lungs. Lungs provide air when the Heart circulates nutrient-rich blood in the body, thus spending the nutrients. Spending means burning, and it is the same as rotting food in the intestines. Since the Kidneys and Heart are small Eum and the Spleen and Lungs great Eum, therefore their principle is Eum going from young to old. Then what is the function of the Liver, which is gwol Eum? Its function is, as mentioned before, the medium between the changes of small Eum and great Eum.

We have discussed about the functions of the five Jang organs. Now we shall proceed to the six Bu organs. The five Jang organs have Eum property and the six Bu organs have Yang property. Eum is like mother, Yang is like father. The works of Kidneys and Spleen digesting food and Heart and Lungs burning nutrients in blood take place inside the body. Like a mother who stays at home and feeds the family, the Jang organs take care of our bodies inside. If the Spleen provide nutrient that is already absorbed in the body, the Stomach and Small intestine take in the nutrients from outside the body. Also, when Lungs burn the nutrients in the blood, the Large intestine and the urinary Bladder burn bits of food that is from outside, and discharge them. Therefore, the Lungs and Heart are intra-systems, and the Large intestine and urinary Bladder are extra-systems. The extra-systems have a special function that is different from other organs. Large intestines absorb water, and the urinary Bladder promotes the evaporation of moisture on the surface of the whole body and store the residue. In a person, the back of the hand is different from the palm, and the back and chest are not alike. Especially in hand and foot, the back is rough and has big pores. The urinary Bladder meridian is also called foot great Yang meridian, and it covers most of a person's back. Although other parts of body sweat too, this area sweats a lot more. Sweating in this area is normal. Through these situations as examples, it can be concluded that the urinary Bladder excrete sweat outside and evaporate moisture.

Let us discuss now the combination of Jang organs and Bu organs. Usually they match one by one. The Liver and Gall bladder are a pair; so are Heart and Small intestine; Spleen and Stomach (look at Five Phases Correspondence table). The Lungs and Large intestine, the Kidneys and urinary Bladder are also partners. The three energizers of the six Bu organs are left alone. Generally, Jang organ means it is a closed space, while the Bu organs are open like a stable. That is why the Jang organs keep Ki while Bu organs store it shortly to release it later. Both in Jang and Bu organs, the Ki circulates according to the five functions. While in the five Jang organs, Ki circulates in the order Wood Fire Soil Metal Water, the six Bu organs circulate Ki in Wood Fire Metal Water order. The Stomach oversees all the steps of digesting, so it is related in all four steps. When the digestive liquid is secreted from the Gall bladder it goes down through the Small intestine to the Large intestine and the urinary Bladder. Therefore, for food to be processed and turned into feces, it must change in the order of the five functions. Since food belongs to Soil the color is initially yellow, but after appropriate process the color of feces should be black. If the color of feces is blue, the process has stopped in the Tree step owing to dysfunction of the Liver and Gall bladder. If it is red the process has been disturbed in the Fire step thus indicating problem in the Heart and Small intestine, if the color is yellow the process stopped in the Soil step due to abnormal Spleen and Stomach. White feces means stopped process of food in the Metal phase because of problems in the Lungs and Large intestine. The color of urine signifies same dysfunctions. Therefore we know that the Liver and Gall bladder; Heart and Small intestine; Lungs and Large intestine; Kidneys and urinary Bladder are deeply related organs. Then what are the Triple energizers, which do not exist in the concepts of conventional Medicine? <Huangdi Neijing> and <Nanjing> have different ways of expressing them, but the fundamental explanation is the same thing.

In <Huangdi Neijing>, it says the upper energizer is like fog, the middle one like foam, and the lower energizer is like a stream. In <Nanjing> the Triple energizers are expressed as the extensions of original Ki. What that means is, the Triple energizers help the original Ki in the Kidneys to arise and digest food. When cooking rice, over the pot is a layer of fog. There are foams forming in the pot, and below is still moisture. Therefore it can be concluded that what the Triple energizers express are the steps of food being absorbed in the intestines.