The motive for dissection and the view of the body in the yellow emperor’s inner classic (Huangdineijing)

Considering scarce records of dissection and the functional view of the body in East Asian Medicine, it is difficult but interesting to explore the motive for dissection in ancient times. The functional view of the body does not match well with dissection, but Huangdineijing that was compiled in the formative period of East Asian Medicine contains records probably related to dissection in two of its treatises. There are two hypotheses about the motive for dissection that are widely accepted; one is to prove the correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm and the other is to establish the standard model of body through measurements of organs. This article examined a novel hypothesis that the main motive for human body dissection was to establish the functional properties of the body upon objective anatomical data; anatomical measures were directly used to explain the circulation of qi and the digestive processes as a physiological metabolism. The purpose of anatomical dissection was to integrate physiology and anatomy as the obtained anatomical knowledge played a pivotal role in establishing the functional view of the body in East Asian Medicine.