Dampness

1. One of the six qì, i.e., dampness as an environmental phenomenon.

2. One of the six excesses, i.e., dampness in the environment as a cause of disease.

3. Dampness as an evil in the body. Dampness in the body is qualitatively analogous and causally related to dampness in the natural environment. It is associated with damp weather or damp climates and with stagnant water in places where ground drainage is poor. To some extent, it is seasonal in nature, tending to occur when the weather is wet or damp. Sitting and lying in wet places, living in damp conditions, working in a damp or wet environment, or wearing sweat-soaked clothing can also cause dampness diseases. Thorough Knowledge of Medicine (医贯 yī guàn) states, There is dampness in heaven (i.e., in the atmosphere), which comes from rain, dew, and mist. Being in heaven, it gets its nature from qì, so it strikes provisioning and defense. There is dampness from earth, which comes from mud and water. Being in the earth, it nature comes from [that which possesses] form, hence it damages the flesh, the sinews, the bones, the blood, and vessels. There is the dampness of sweat, which comes from sweat-soaked clothing that is not immediately changed. There is dampness that forms in greater yīn (tài yīn) spleen-earth, which is not from outside the body. When yáng is exuberant, fire is prevails, and transforms into damp-heat; when yīn is exuberant, water prevails, and transforms into cold-damp. The signs are heat effusion, aversion to cold, generalized heaviness, sweating, sinew and bone pain, rough urination, sloppy diarrhea, lumbar pain that prevents turning, swelling of instep with flesh [that feels] like mud, not springing back when pressed. Dampness has a number of characteristics:

1. It is clammy, viscous, and lingering. Dampness diseases are persistent and difficult to cure.
2. Dampness tends to stagnate. When dampness evil invades the exterior, the patient may complain of physical fatigue, heavy, cumbersome limbs, and heavy-headedness. If it invades the channels and the joints, the patient may complain of aching joints and inhibited bending and stretching. Dampness can also trap and dampen the effect of heat by causing an generalized heat failing to surface, one that can be felt only by prolonged palpation.
3. The spleen is particularly vulnerable to dampness evil; signs of dampness encumbering the spleen include poor appetite, glomus and oppression in the chest and stomach duct, upflow nausea, abdominal distension, sloppy stool, short voidings of scant urine, thick and slimy tongue fur, and a soggy moderate pulse. The lack of desire for fluids—though especially in the case of damp-heat there may be thirst—is a sign of the clogging or encumbering effect of dampness.
4. There may be generalized or local stagnation or accumulation of water-damp, such as water swelling, leg qì, vaginal discharge, or exudating sores such as eczema. Dampness in the body is often referred to as damp turbidity to highlight it as the antithesis of clear yáng qì.
5. Over time, dampness can gather to form phlegm.

NB: Damp may serve as an adjective as in damp phlegm or as a noun (equivalent to dampness), e.g., damp-heat. Damp is actually preferable to dampness since it denotes moisture in the air, on a surface, diffused through a solid, which over long period can cause mold and cause disease. Dampness, by contrast, strictly means the quality of being damp. However, in this text, the form dampness has been used in most cases to avoid the confusion that may arise in terms such as dampness-drying formula, which is not to be understood as a damp, drying formula. See dampness forming with heat and dampness forming with cold.