working-paperBRC-2026-W301
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.
working-paperBRC-2026-W302
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without adequate edition, facsimile, character-variant, and translation controls; historical treatment language is not current guidance or evidence of efficacy.
working-paperBRC-2026-E102
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.
working-paperBRC-2026-W105
Heat on the back (beire) and Back-Shu points (beishu) both invoke the back, and classical medicine often relates heat to viscera, making a direct connection tempting. Separated by textual genealogy, however, the relationship is limited. The Donguibogam entry quotes the Yixue Rumen to place back heat in a lung and upper-burner explanatory network but mentions neither an acupoint nor needling. The Lingshu chapter locates visceral Back-Shu points by vertebral level and palpatory response but does not discuss back heat. The Suwen places ten points beside the five visceral Shu points within a needling system for heat illness, not a study of spontaneous localized heat on the back. A 2022 systematic review of ten acupoint-temperature studies could not establish disease specificity because of heterogeneity and methodological limitations. A 2024 thermographic study of 50 people with lumbar-disc-herniation low-back pain and 45 healthy controls reported asymmetry at several lumbar Back-Shu points, but did not recruit people for back heat. A study of 48 healthy adults found site-to-site differences in tissue properties and pressure sensitivity, showing that anatomy alone can create apparent point differences. Current evidence therefore supports a testable historical and measurement hypothesis—not the conclusion that Back-Shu points cause, diagnose, or treat heat on the back.
working-paperBRC-2026-W003
Shanghan Lun Zhu and Shanghan Lun Yi, both associated with Ke Qin, each present “three methods for treating water” across the upper, middle, and lower burners, yet Wuling San does not occupy the same position. In the inspected Shanghan Lun Zhu witness, Xiao Qing Long Tang, Shi Zao Tang, and Wuling San occupy the upper, middle, and lower positions respectively. In Shanghan Lun Yi, Wuling San is paired with Xiao Qing Long Tang in the upper-burner clause, while Gui Zhi Qu Gui Jia Ling Zhu Tang occupies the lower clause. We compared normalized transcriptions, independent public transcriptions, and facsimile pages. The result shows that the symptom–method–formula arrangement was not stably repeated under the same heading. It does not by itself establish authorial intent, the exact moment of revision, or an edition genealogy. Contemporary formulary and paediatric uses provide secondary context for other editorial units in which Wuling San was invoked.
working-paperBRC-2026-W004
Donguibogam passages on sleeplessness do not collapse experienced wakefulness, restless or unstable sleep, contexts of post-illness debility and age, and explanations such as phlegm and the spirit failing to return to its abode into one layer. Modern insomnia research likewise shows that self-report, sleep diaries, actigraphy, and polysomnography observe sleep through different rules and may disagree. We cross-analysed a normalized and facsimile-checked classical section with one full-text systematic review and two full-text observational studies across four axes: experience, time, recording instrument, and classificatory purpose. The traditions can be compared in their shared act of stratifying sleep problems, but their categories, mechanisms, and measures are not translatable. Classical 不寐 cannot be retrospectively diagnosed as sleep-state misperception, nor can modern device measurement validate 神不歸舍. Integrative research should keep observations apart from the explanations attached to them and clearly mark where the two traditions overlap, differ, or do not correspond.
