Chapter 25 Chapter 7: Research on the Form, Structure and Function of the Human Body

As early as in oracle bone inscriptions, there were many hieroglyphs that reflected the ancients' understanding of the human body.For example, in oracle bone inscriptions: the head (called the first) as , face made , like a human face; , the outer circle is like the eye socket, the inner circle is like the eyeball, and a little bit in the circle is like the eyeball; the ear is like the eyeball. , shaped like an ear; , like mouth shape; teeth , like the teeth in the mouth; , like a heart shape, also represents the internal partition; blood as , The dots in the characters represent blood in the vessel... These oracle bone inscriptions show that three or four thousand years ago, our country has accumulated a lot of knowledge about the human body.

In the literature of the pre-Qin period, there are already records about the study of human anatomy. "Lingshu Jing Jingshui" said: "A man of eight feet, the skin and flesh are here, and the outside can be measured and obtained, and his death can be dissected. The firmness of the viscera, the size of the internal organs, The number of valleys, the length of the pulse; the clearness and turbidity of the blood, the amount of qi, and the excess of blood and lack of qi in the twelve meridians, instead of less blood and more qi, and instead of both blood and qi, and instead of both blood and qi, there are large numbers.” This shows that my country has indeed conducted research on human anatomy more than 2,000 years ago. The word "anatomy" invented more than 2,000 years ago has not only been used until now, but also spread to Japan and is still used today.

"Lingshu Jing Gastrointestinal" preserves the records of visceral anatomy measurements made at that time: The length of the valley from the shallow depth to the near distance: the length from the lips to the teeth is nine minutes, and the width of the mouth is two and a half inches.From the back of the teeth to the epiglottis, three and a half inches deep, with a capacity of five joints.The tongue weighs ten taels, is seven inches long, and two and a half inches wide.The pharynx weighs twelve liang, one and a half inches wide, and one chi six inches long to the stomach.Stomach is flexed and stretched, two feet six inches long, one foot five inches long, five inches in diameter, and can hold three buckets and five liters.The back of the small intestine is attached to the ridge, and the left circle is piled up in circles. It is injected into the ileum, and it is attached to the umbilicus on the outside.The ileum acts as the umbilical cord, and the leaves around the left circle accumulate and go down, and the circulation circle reverses sixteen curves.Four inches in size, less than half an inch in diameter, and two feet and one foot in length.The wide intestine spreads the ridge to receive the ileum, and the left circular leaf ridge is opened up and down, eight inches in size, more than half of two inches in diameter, and two feet and eight inches in length.From the entrance to the exit of the intestines and stomach, it is six feet four inches and four minutes long, with thirty-two twists and turns.

The measurement of various organs of the human digestive tract in the "Lingshu Jing·Intestines" not only records the length, width and volume of the digestive organs, but also records the relative position and distribution. It is obvious that after many actual anatomical observations and fine measurements Get the result of the average value.These records are basically consistent with those of modern anatomy.For example, according to the records in "Lingshu Jing Gastrointestinal", the ratio of the length of the esophagus to the intestine is 1:36, and the ratio of the length of the esophagus to the intestine provided by the modern anatomist Spalteholz in the book "Human Anatomy" The length ratio is 1:37, the two are almost equal.It can be seen that the ancient visceral anatomy measurement work was done very carefully.

In addition, living surface measurement studies have been carried out in ancient times. The "Lingshu Jing Bone Degree" preserves the height of ordinary people in ancient times and the length and size of various parts. (See Table 1) This is a rare and precious ancient anthropometric record. It has 38 measurement items, including length, width and girth. Judging from the order of the items, it reflects the order in which people took anthropometric measurements at that time. operating procedures.For thousands of years, many people have done research on this anthropometric record. In particular, in recent years, some people have compared the modern anthropometric results with the records in "Bone Degree", and found that the two figures are basically similar.

The "Bone Degree" also determines the relationship between internal organs and various parts of the body surface according to the anatomical characteristics of the surface of each part of the human body, and infers the volume of the internal organs according to the measurement results of the body surface.As it points out, the distance from the center of the crater (suprasternal notch) to the (bone) 骬 [heyuheyu] (xiphoid process) is generally nine inches (approximately 17.7 cm).If it exceeds this length, it means that the lung volume is large, otherwise, it means that the lung volume is small; the distance from the xiphoid process to the Tianshu (umbilical eye) is usually eight inches (about 15.8 cm), if it is too long, it means that the stomach volume is large, and if it is too short, it means that the stomach is large. Indicates a small stomach volume.This is consistent with modern anatomical knowledge.