working-paperBRC-2026-W3012026-08-29
Functional dyspepsia and accumulation (積) in classical medical texts share expressions such as epigastric discomfort, nausea, belching, and fullness. Rome IV, however, defines its diagnostic scope through four core symptoms, frequency and duration thresholds, and exclusion of structural disease, whereas selected passages in Jingui Gouxuan, Zabing Guangyao, and Donguibogam also record pulse findings, palpable form and movement, location, diarrhea, and changes after defecation. Shared symptom terms therefore do not establish diagnostic, mechanistic, or causal equivalence. No material reviewed here applies Rome IV and contemporary damjeok criteria to the same people, and the classical sources lack adequate edition, facsimile, character-variant, and translation controls. The article sets out these limits and proposes conditions for a future study that records the two sets of observations independently in the same participants at the same time. Another diagnostic vocabulary cannot replace clinical evaluation for structural disease.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)functional dyspepsia · Rome IV · post-meal discomfort · classical medical texts
working-paperBRC-2026-W3022026-08-29
This source note examines seven occurrences of 痰積, 積聚, and 食積 selected after checking sentences and their surrounding contexts in character-normalized electronic records. Two locations in Jingui Gouxuan concern diarrhea and historical treatment, and dizziness and pulse observation; two in Zabing Guangyao concern palpable form, movement, and location; and three in Donguibogam concern chest and intestinal locations, lists of illness presentations, and fever and headache resembling cold damage (傷寒). The terms do not follow one fixed explanatory pattern across these seven locations. Because the examples were purposively selected, they cannot establish distribution, representativeness, or genealogy across a book or period, and electronic line numbers are not edition page or folio locators. The quotations and renderings remain provisional without adequate edition, facsimile, character-variant, and translation controls; historical treatment language is not current guidance or evidence of efficacy.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)痰積 · 積聚 · 食積 · classical medical texts
working-paperBRC-2026-W2012026-08-21
A report of cold hands or feet can refer to felt cold, site-matched skin-surface temperature, an explicitly named local flow or perfusion measure, and the rewarming course, but these four observations are not substitutes for one another. In a provoked immersion series of 12 people selected for cold-sensitive hands, median superficial dorsal-hand perfusion changed little from 52.5 to 51.3 perfusion units, while participant-level values rose in six and fell in six. Other controlled studies found different cold ratings at comparable measured temperatures. In a separate foot-immersion test, the injury group differed from two control groups in sensation and coldest-toe temperature at minutes five and ten, while great-toe temperature did not differ, the mean-toe result did not cross the conventional statistical significance threshold, and great-toe cutaneous vascular conductance was also similar. Temperature and recovery values also had to be interpreted with their device, exact site, sampling schedule, time origin, and endpoint. None of these findings identifies a cause or subtype, and a specific exposure, skin or tissue finding, or relevant disease context changes the question being asked. From 2026-08-16T16:06:11Z to 2026-08-16T20:19:50Z, 238 records were screened across 13 prespecified PubMed searches; passages cited in the synthesis were checked through 2026-08-17T03:40:34Z. Within that route and date range, we found no qualifying hand dataset that synchronized participant-level felt cold, site-matched skin-surface temperature, an explicitly named local flow or perfusion measure, and the complete rewarming course during naturally occurring recurrent episodes; the same bounded result arose separately for feet. This does not establish absence from unreviewed results, other databases, inaccessible material, or later publications. The next step is a prospective repeated-observation study that keeps hands and feet separate and preserves individual trajectories, but it remains unvalidated until feasibility and synchronization, technical repeatability and device-site agreement, Korean and English sensory-wording evaluation, prespecified construct-validity testing, and external replication succeed.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)cold hands and feet · felt cold · skin temperature · peripheral perfusion
working-paperBRC-2026-E1032026-08-15
One side of the body can feel burned or frozen while a thermometer or thermogram shows little unusual. We often try to choose between sensation and number. But an infrared camera samples one moment at the skin surface, whereas the nervous system reads temperature together with rate of change, location, contrast, pain, and threat. Healthy people vary widely in detecting the same thermal change; innocuous cooling can feel warm, and mild temperatures can evoke burning. After nerve injury, small cooling can become severe pain. Sensation is not a thermometer, but that does not make it false. Trouble begins when one normal test becomes a verdict on the whole experience. Direct research is missing, yet studies of chronic pain and illness show how disbelief and self-doubt, concealment, and relational withdrawal can deepen isolation. Rather than choosing a winner between two data streams, this essay proposes placing location, time, temperature, sensory thresholds, and social response on the same event timeline.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)scientific essay · thermosensation · thermography · cold allodynia
working-paperBRC-2026-E1022026-08-15
What would appear if a Back-Shu map were overlaid on the body of someone who feels heat in the back? The concepts share a region, and classical medicine discusses viscera and heat together. Yet the Donguibogam sentence on back heat contains no acupoint, while the Lingshu chapter on Back-Shu points contains no heat sensation. The Suwen does connect heat with the vicinity of visceral Shu points, but in the treatment architecture of heat illness, not spontaneous back heat. Modern studies have measured temperature and tissue differences at some Back-Shu sites, but have not studied people recruited for back heat. This essay treats the mismatch not as failure but as a blueprint: map the felt location first, measure thermography during an episode, and only then overlay a blinded point grid and compare point centres with adjacent and mirrored skin. A historically plausible connection exists. Whether Back-Shu points cause, diagnose, or treat back heat remains a question before experiment, not a conclusion after it.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)scientific essay · Back-Shu points · heat on the back · thermography
working-paperBRC-2026-E1012026-08-15
“My back feels hot” is a clear statement, but the object of study is not. Skin-surface temperature, spontaneous warmth, burning pain, itch-associated burning, and responses to imposed thermal stimuli may be different phenomena. We searched modern biomedical research, Korean scholarship, related expressions in East Asian medical texts, and clinical safety guidance. The search did not reveal one cause. It revealed that several observations had been folded into one symptom name while different fields measured only fragments of it. This reader edition reconnects the evidence of four source papers as one scientific essay.
Yeonseung Choe · Baekrokdam Research Commons (BRC)scientific essay · localized heat sensation · burning sensation · thermoception
