The disease is caused by emotional distress, improper sexual activity, dietary habits, and overexertion, leading to internal damage factors such as static blood, phlegm-fluid retention, etc., which directly harm the qi and blood, resulting in illness of the zang-fu organs. Therefore, its fundamental transmission and change forms include the transmission and change of qi and blood, and transmission among zang-fu organs. The process of transmission and change is often slow and accumulative. The details are described as follows:
As for "generation and restriction" transmission and change, it refers to the rules and forms of pathological changes in zang-fu organs transmitting according to their Five Phases attributes and generation and restriction relationships, which is also the main mode of transmission among zang-fu organs. The so-called "generation" refers to the mutual promotion in physiology and mutual compensation and benefit in pathology among zang-fu organs; the so-called "restriction" refers to the mutual restraint in physiology and mutual harm and aggravation in pathology among zang-fu organs. Pathological generation and restriction are essentially reflections of physiological generation and restriction in the disease process. Therefore, zang-fu organs that have generation and restriction relationships in physiology will have and produce generation and restriction transmission and change relationships in pathology. Suwen-Yuji Zhencang Lun states: "The five zang-organs are interconnected, and their transmission follows a certain order. When the five zang-organs are diseased, they each transmit to their element being restricted... Transmitting through the five zang-organs leads to death, following the order of sequential transmission of the element being restricted," referring to this form of transmission and change. In summary, this transmission and change involves two basic modes: one is where the pathological changes mainly follow the "restriction" relationship, transmitting from one zang-fu organ to another, often resulting in worsening or deterioration of the condition; the other is where the pathological changes follow the "generation" relationship, receiving mutual support and benefit among the generating zang-fu organs, thereby limiting the pathological changes and alleviating the condition. The former is "transmitting to the element being restricted," while the latter is "transmitting to the child" and "transmitting to the mother," collectively known as "mother-child transmission," which is the principle and mechanism described in Suwen-Yuji Zhencang Lun as "the five zang-organs receive qi from what they generate, transmit to what they restrict, contain qi from what they generate, and die from what they do not restrict."
In summary, in the form of transmission among zang-fu organs, the inherent generating and restricting relationships between the initially affected zang-fu organs and the subsequently affected zang-fu organs have a crucial impact on the evolution and outcome of diseases. As stated in Suwen-Cangqi Fashi Lun, "When pathogenic qi from heaven invades the body, it follows the principle of overcoming and adding, reaching the organs it generates and healing, reaching the element that is unrestricted and worsening, reaching the organs it generates and maintaining, and returning to its own position and rising." This also illustrates this relationship and pattern from another perspective. For more details, see the chapter on zang-fu organs mechanism of disease in this book.