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.If struck by wind during these critical times of individualdepletion, a person is more likely to succumb than is someone of a differ-ent age.Yang Shangshan s explanation may not reflect exactly what the orig-inal authors had in mind; nevertheless, a notion of critical years may havebeen involved here.The second factor contributing to depletion, the waxing and waning of Unschuld,Huang Di nei jing 12/2/02 1:34 PM Page 185survey of the contents of the su wen 185the moon, does not affect individuals but all of humankind.A full moon goesalong with repletion in the organism; the new moon is the time of greatestsusceptibility to harm.The third factor affects individuals and, in contrast to the two mentionedso far, permits countermeasures.The texts simply state to lose accord withthe time results in depletion. Not to lose accord with the time, that is, withthe seasons, is of course part of medical prevention.If all three factors are negative, that is, if a person in the decline of hisyears, at new moon, and having lost accord with the time, is struck by a de-pletion wind, that is, a wind coming from the direction opposite to whereit should have originated, then a dangerous situation arises.The risk offalling ill is diminished if one, two, or all three of the factors named arepositive.Additional texts demonstrate the development toward an ever-increasingintegration of wind etiology into the doctrines of natural laws and system-atic correspondence and rejection of the demonological vestiges stillpresent in the notion of the cyclical movements of the supreme being Taiyi.To select the right time for an insertion of needles to regulate bloodand qi, the Tian ji Ê, Natural [phenomena] that are to be avoided, atext appearing in the Tai su and as the Discourse on the Eight Cardinal[Turning Points] and on Spirit Brilliance in Su wen 26, emphasizes cor-respondences between man s physiological rhythms and the phases of themoon, the light of the sun, the stars, and certain climatic phenomena.Zhufeng za lun "¯Ê%, a Discourse on Various Issues Concerning AllWinds in the Tai su and in the Ling shu, is an attempt to dissolve doubtsabout whether wind is indeed the origin of all illness and explicitly rejectsthe notion that demons might have been involved in one or another caseof disease.Finally, the two consecutive texts Zhu feng shu lei ""Ûand Zhu fengzhuang lun "¨Ê%in the Tai su, which appear as parts one and two in the Discourse on Wind in Su wen 42, document attempts to fully integrate windetiology into the teachings of systematic correspondence.Also, wind is nolonger merely an etiological category; it is the disease per se.Depending onwhere the wind had struck, the result may be a brain wind, a stomach wind,or a liver wind, to name but a few.The Su wen, deliberately or not, and in contrast to the Ling shu and theTai su, accepted only the very end of this discourse.In at least thirty-five ofits chapters, wind etiology is mentioned in greater or lesser detail.Occa-sionally the old notions of winds arising in eight cardinal directions reap-pear, although the original link to changing residences of Tai yi is mentionednowhere in the Su wen.An example is a statement in Su wen 17, where HuangDi asks Qi Bo for the causes of yong -abscesses, swelling, sinew cramps, andbone pain. Qi Bo responds: Unschuld,Huang Di nei jing 12/2/02 1:34 PM Page 186186 survey of the contents of the su wenThese are swellings [caused] by cold qi;changes of the eight winds are [responsible].424A short dialogue between Huang Di and Qi Bo throws light on what theauthor of the following passage may have felt was a conceptual break, re-quiring an explanation, between five winds associated with the five seasonsand the five depots, on the one side, and a continuing awareness of a con-cept of eight winds originating in the eight cardinal directions on the other:Huang Di asked:Heaven has eight winds.The conduits have five winds.What does that mean?Qi Bo responded:The eight winds bring forth evil [qi].They become the [five] winds in the conduits.They affect the five depots.The evil qi brings forth diseases.425This general statement is followed by a systematic account, which was writ-ten by another author.Rather than mention eight winds, it lists only fourwinds originating in the East, South, West, and North
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