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Wu Xing and the Integration of Medicines

AUTHOR – B. Rouytchev, MD

Introduction

Every great culture in human history has sought a way to describe and explain the world. Ancient China created one of the most enduring models—Wu Xing, or the “Five Elements.” This is not an arbitrary arrangement but a deep system that unifies natural, physical, biological, and medical phenomena into a single dynamic scheme.

Keywords: Wu Xing, integrated medicine, TCM, inflammation, mutual verification

Wu Xing is both a model and a language. It can express relationships between fields that seem unrelated at first glance—from seasons and colors to organs and disease processes. That makes it a universal analytical instrument, able to explain the world and to serve as a bridge between different medical paradigms.

One of the beauties of this model is the linking of colors with the elements:

• Fire — red, South;
• Earth — yellow, Center;
• Metal — white, West;
• Water — black, North;
• Wood — blue and green, East.

This arrangement is not an invented composition; it corresponds to the order of colors in the light spectrum by wavelength—from red to yellow, white (a combination of all), blue/green, and finally black as the absence of light. This is evidence that the model is not empty talk but reflects a natural law.
At first glance, it may seem that water should be blue—“like the sea.” But Wu Xing works with the dynamic state of phenomena:

• The surface of water is mirror-like, often white due to reflected light.
• In shallow water, it is blue-green—the zone of life corresponding to Wood.
• In the depths it becomes indigo, then black—on the bottom there is no color and no light.

In this sense, the “black water” of Wu Xing is not an optical impression but a reflection of water’s state in its deepest, latent phase.

1. Organ manifestations and functional links

In Eastern medicine, each element has its organ and functional equivalent:

• Wood — liver and gallbladder;
• Fire — heart and small intestine;
• Earth — spleen and stomach;
• Metal — lung and large intestine;
• Water — kidneys and urinary bladder.

These organs are connected not only anatomically but also through functional and energetic cycles. That allows the ancient model to be used as a diagnostic and prognostic tool.

2. Integration with the Roman concept of inflammation

Since the time of Celsus and Galen, the five classic signs of inflammation have been known:

rubor (redness), calor (heat), dolor (pain), tumor (swelling), functio laesa (impaired function).

For the first time in this article, they are “placed” on the circle of the Five Elements, so the dynamics of the inflammatory process can be traced in the logic of Wu Xing:

• Wood (East) — a new impulse for growth → recovery, reordering.
• Fire (South) — flare of the process → rubor and calor (redness and heat).
• Earth (Southwest) — response to imbalance → tumor (edema/swelling).
• Metal (West) — first attempt at defense → dolor (pain).
• Water (North) — latent cause, deep accumulation → functio laesa (loss of function).

This arrangement shows that inflammation is a cycle rather than an isolated event. Wood is not a symptom but a post‑symptom impulse—“a spark of the Dao,” a sprout of new regulation.

3. Mechanism of the development of inflammation

• Exhausted Water (kidneys) → Wood heats up and begins to dry.
• Heat and redness (Fire) intensify the process.
• Fire accumulates “ash” (Earth) → swelling.
• The swelling prevents Fire from liquefying Metal → pain.
• Water continues to decline → loss of function; either decay occurs or the “tree of life” sprouts anew.

4. Homeostasis in the logic of Wu Xing

The model can also arrange the main parameters of homeostasis:

• Fire (South) — isothermy (temperature stability)
• Earth (Southwest) — isotonia (tonicity/equilibrium of solutions)
• Metal (West) — iso‑osmia (osmotic pressure)
• Water (North) — isoionia (ionic balance)
• Wood (East) — isohydria (acid‑base balance)

Thus, within one and the same circle we can integrate both biochemical indicators and clinical signs—showing that the body works as a connected system rather than a sum of isolated functions.

5. Significance for integrative medicine

This approach is not an attempt to oppose Eastern and Western medicine but to find a shared model and language. Wu Xing can:

• connect symptoms, laboratory values, and energetic concepts;
• forecast the course of a process and potential intervention points;
• provide new hypotheses for links between systems that are otherwise considered separately.

Conclusion

Wu Xing is far more than a historical legacy. It is a dynamic model that can explain the world and integrate different medical approaches. Applying it to inflammation and homeostasis shows that ancient philosophy and modern science can meet in a single analytical apparatus—one that not only describes but explains processes.

References

Energetics of the Living Systems, Mussat, M. Energétique des systèmes vivants. Paris: Medsi, 1982.

10.5281/zenodo.16932226

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