Wind

1. One of the six qì; any natural movement of air. See aversion to wind; tearing on exposure to wind.

2. Also wind evil. One of the six excesses; wind as a cause of disease, a yáng evil. The nature of wind as an evil and its clinical manifestations are similar to those of the meteorological phenomenon from which it derives its name: it comes and goes quickly, moves swiftly, blows intermittently, and sways the branches of the trees. Wind is mobile and changeable, and its clinical manifestations as an evil have the following characteristics:

1. Rapid onset and swift changes in condition.
2. Convulsions, tremor, shaking of the head, dizziness, and wandering pain and itching.
3. Invasion of the upper part of the body and the exterior, e.g., the head (the uppermost part of the body), the lung (the uppermost of the major organs), and the skin and body hair.
4. Facial paralysis and hemiplegia. Note that although wind is associated with movement, by causing stiffness and clenched jaw, it can also be seen to have the power to check normal movement, as in facial paralysis.

3. Internal wind, i.e., wind arising within the body by the following pathomechanisms: liver yáng transforming into wind, which occurs when liver yáng and liver fire transform into wind, manifesting in dizziness, tremor, and convulsions; extreme heat engendering wind, arising in externally contracted diseases such as fright wind and manifesting in convulsions, stiffness of the neck, arched-back rigidity, etc.; blood vacuity engendering wind, arising when great sweating, great vomiting, great diarrhea, major loss of blood, damage to yīn in enduring illness, or kidney-water failing to moisten liver-wood causes desiccation of the blood that deprives the sinews of nourishment and insufficiency of liver yīn that leaves yáng unsubdued and allows liver wind to scurry around internally. Vacuity wind stirring within is marked by dizziness, tremor, worm-like movement in the extremities, or clouding collapse. See also viscus of wind and wood; liver; fright wind.

4. Any of various diseases ascribed to wind or bearing attributes of wind; occurs in disease names such as lip wind, white patch wind, goose-foot wind, head wind, thunder head wind, crane’s-knee wind, joint-running wind, great numbing wind, scrotal wind, childbed wind, wandering wind, nipple wind, lost heart wind, green wind internal obstruction, and yellow wind internal obstruction.