Flat-abscess

Also ju (Obs.).

1. Headless flat-abscess. A deep malign suppuration in the flesh, sinew, and even the bone, attributed to toxic evil obstructing qì and the blood.

2. Headed flat-abscess. Prior to the Sòng Dynasty, the term jū meant only headless flat-abscess. From Sòng Dynasty, it came to be used to denote certain superficial sores. For this reason, the terms headed flat-abscess and headless flat-abscess became current to distinguish the two.

Etymology

Chin 疽 jū is composed of the 疒 chuáng, the illness signifier and 且 qiě, a ritual offerings table, as phonetic (and possibly a semantic) element. The character is explained in medical texts as meaning the same as 阻 zǔ, obstruct or impede, and 沮 which has a number of meanings distinguished in modern Mandarin by pronunciation: 沮 jū, name of various rivers; 沮 jù, wet, moist; marsh, swamp; 阻 zǔ, obstruct, thwart, defeat. Orthodox External Medicine (外科正宗 wài kē zhèng zōng, yōng jū mén) states, 疽 (flat-abscess) means 沮 (marsh, swamp). The notion of marsh or swamp connotes an accumulation of water due to lack of drainage, an image that continually recurs in Chinese medicine. The fact that a major feature of 疽 is that it is flat, placing it in opposition to 痈, which is raised, possibly makes the notion of the marsh as a broad accumulation of water in low-lying land doubly pertinent to understanding how 疽 was originally conceived and why it was so named.