Thoroughfare vessel

Abbreviation: TV. Also penetrating vessel. One of the eight extraordinary vessels.

Etymology

Chin The original character 衝 chōng meant a major highway, a crossroads, or to thrust, charge, or surge. This vessel is so called because, running between the head and the feet, it is like a major highway that connects all twelve regular channels.

Thoroughfare Vessel Functions

The thoroughfare vessel is the sea of the twelve regular channels because it has a regulating effect on all of them. Its main function is helping the controlling (rèn) vessel to regulate menstruation in women, for which it is also called the sea of blood.

Note that sea of blood in other contexts may refer to the liver on account of the liver’s blood-storing function. It also appears in acupoint nomenclature, being the standard name for SP-10 and an alternate name for CV-4 (guān yuán).

Thoroughfare Vessel Pathway

Overview

• Smaller abdomen → qì street → kidney channel → umbilicus → chest → throat → lips → below eye socket.
• Branch 1: Qì street → medial aspect of thigh → popliteal fossa → medial face of tibia → malleolus → sole of foot.
• Branch 2: Medial malleolus → dorsum of foot → great toe.
• Branch 3: Pelvic cavity → ascends with GV inside the spinal column.

Description

The thoroughfare vessel starts in the smaller abdomen (in the uterus in women) descends to emerge at the perineum, passes to the qì street (气街 qì jiē, the area of the pulsating vessel in the groin) to then follows the kidney channel on the abdomen, running from the umbilicus to the chest before dispersing in the chest. From the chest, it runs up the throat and circles the lips, before ascending to below the eye socket.

A branch (1) descends from the qì street down the medial aspect of the thigh to the popliteal fossaand down the medial aspect of the tibia to the medial malleolus, finally to enter the sole of the foot.

A secondary branch (2) of the first at the medial malleolus and moves forward obliquely over the dorsum of the foot, to finally enter the great toe.

Finally, a further branch (3) begins in the pelvis and ascends with the governing (dū) vessel inside the spine.

Acupoints on the Thoroughfare Vessel

The thoroughfare vessel has no points of its own but shares kidney channel points KI-11 to KI-21.

Indications

These are used for the following:

• In women, flooding and spotting, miscarriage, amenorrhea, menstrual irregularities, scant breast milk, smaller abdominal pain, and vomiting of blood.
• In men, seminal emission, impotence, and conditions classed in biomedicine as prostatitis, urethritis, and orchitis.

Etymology

Chin 冲 chōng, used in the simplified character set as a substitute for 冲, a thoroughfare; charge, thrust, surge upward; clash, crash.