What Are The Six Evils ?
Chinese advances in astronomy and meteorology had benefits for Chinese medicine. The ancient Chinese saw that meteorological conditions of each season and climate have a closed relationship with what happens in the body. Early in 576 BC, when most of the world believed diseases were due to influences of evil spirits, a famous TCM physician named Yi He saw an imbalance of six factors (yin, yang, wind, rain, night and day) could be used to explain how various diseases occurred.
Thereafter, physicians generalized the six climatic factors as the external influences for disease development. They were wind, cold, summer-heat, dampness, dryness, and fire or heat, which are commonly referred to as evils in Chinese medicine literature.
Under normal circumstances, these climatic factors do not cause disease; because, human defense and self-regulatory systems can adapt to them accordingly. However, in cases of extreme environmental changes, or in cases where the body is too weak to adjust to climatic changes, they became pathogens that could cause disease especially those that were infectious. Thus, they became known in Chinese medicine as the “six excesses” or the “six evils.”
This long-held concept has changed little since its formation. Modern Chinese medicine physicians generally view the six evils as climatic factors, organisms or toxic materials that disturb the dynamic equilibrium within the body. However, they don’t always indicate concrete entities. Simply speaking, there are six categories of exogenous influences, which cause the body to respond in particular ways. Symbolic indicators or symptoms akin to the characteristics of the six climatic factors alert a physician to an influence of a particular evil.
The six evils have the following pathogenic features:
The Six Evils do not affect every person in the same way. Indeed, exceptionally healthy persons are not adversely affected by any of them. An "evil" will attack the body only when and where it is weak and only when protective qi is deficient somewhere along the surface of the body. One of the purposes of preventive medicine is to keep the body resistant to such outside attacks.
Diseases of the six evils are most likely to occur under abnormal weather conditions, when the body is prepared for the dominant season and suddenly faces an opposite force. Sudden cold spells in mid-summer, for example often causes epidemics of influenza. Similarly, people who travel or move from a cold, dry place to a warm, damp climate are more vulnerable to invasion by local meteorological excesses than natives of the region.
Special Conditions
Plague was a major problem during ancient time; therefore TCM learnt about epidemic diseases earlier and pestilential evils are blamed for it. The pestilential evil is a kind of pathogenic factor with intense infectivity. Attacks of pestilential evils are usually related to unusual climates such as droughts, floods, extreme heat as well as pollution. Epidemics occur suddenly with severe symptoms and are highly contagious.
Thereafter, physicians generalized the six climatic factors as the external influences for disease development. They were wind, cold, summer-heat, dampness, dryness, and fire or heat, which are commonly referred to as evils in Chinese medicine literature.
Under normal circumstances, these climatic factors do not cause disease; because, human defense and self-regulatory systems can adapt to them accordingly. However, in cases of extreme environmental changes, or in cases where the body is too weak to adjust to climatic changes, they became pathogens that could cause disease especially those that were infectious. Thus, they became known in Chinese medicine as the “six excesses” or the “six evils.”
This long-held concept has changed little since its formation. Modern Chinese medicine physicians generally view the six evils as climatic factors, organisms or toxic materials that disturb the dynamic equilibrium within the body. However, they don’t always indicate concrete entities. Simply speaking, there are six categories of exogenous influences, which cause the body to respond in particular ways. Symbolic indicators or symptoms akin to the characteristics of the six climatic factors alert a physician to an influence of a particular evil.
The pathogenic features of the six evils
The six evils have the following pathogenic features:
- They are related to the seasons or living environment. For example, generally there are wind diseases in spring, summer-heat diseases in summer, damp diseases in late summer and early autumn, dry diseases in autumn, and cold diseases in winter. In addition, people who live for a long time in a humid environment tend to be easily attacked by the dampness evil, and those who work long in an environment of high temperature tend to be easily have heat stroke.
- All evils can work alone or in combination of two more complex form in attacking the body. Such syndromes like the common cold of wind-cold type, damp-heat diarrhea, and wind-cold-damp blockage in the joints are examples of medical problems caused by a combination of evils.
- In the course of disease development, any one of the six evils can influence the others and can also transform into another kind of evil under certain conditions. For example, cold evils that enter the body's interior can be transformed into heat evils, and summer-heat and dampness accumulated for a long time can be transformed into dryness evil.
- The six evils invade the body and cause disease mostly through the body surface or the openings like nose and mouth. For this reason they are also termed the "six exogenous or outside evils".
External evils and dominant seasons
| External Evils | Dominant Seasons |
|---|---|
| Wind | Spring |
| Summer heat | Summer |
| Dampness | Late summer |
| Dryness | Autumn |
| Coldness | Winter |
The Six Evils do not affect every person in the same way. Indeed, exceptionally healthy persons are not adversely affected by any of them. An "evil" will attack the body only when and where it is weak and only when protective qi is deficient somewhere along the surface of the body. One of the purposes of preventive medicine is to keep the body resistant to such outside attacks.
Diseases of the six evils are most likely to occur under abnormal weather conditions, when the body is prepared for the dominant season and suddenly faces an opposite force. Sudden cold spells in mid-summer, for example often causes epidemics of influenza. Similarly, people who travel or move from a cold, dry place to a warm, damp climate are more vulnerable to invasion by local meteorological excesses than natives of the region.
Special Conditions
Plague was a major problem during ancient time; therefore TCM learnt about epidemic diseases earlier and pestilential evils are blamed for it. The pestilential evil is a kind of pathogenic factor with intense infectivity. Attacks of pestilential evils are usually related to unusual climates such as droughts, floods, extreme heat as well as pollution. Epidemics occur suddenly with severe symptoms and are highly contagious.
