Function and Correspondence

The traditional organ systems tie the body into the wider cosmology: the five zang organs to the five phases, the humoral organs to the planets, so that the organs are read in relation to season, emotion, element and star. The atlas presents these as historical and cultural frameworks rather than as modern physiology, since their categories do not correspond to those of biomedicine.

The atlas gives each organ its correspondences in the several systems (phase, meridian, planet), and its traditional functions. The meridians the organs are paired with, and the phases and planets that rule them, are treated in their own categories.