The Spleen meridian (Zu Tai Yin Pi Jing) is one of the twelve principal channels of Chinese medicine, the network along which qi is held to circulate through the body. It is a Yin channel, paired with the Spleen, and belongs to the phase of Earth in the five-phase (wu xing) scheme.
Function in the tradition
In the theory of the channels this meridian is concerned with the transforming of food into qi and blood, the yin partner of the Stomach. The twelve principal channels are arranged in yin-yang pairs and in a daily cycle through which qi is said to pass from one to the next, and the points along them are those used in acupuncture and related therapies.
The meridian is described here as a concept of traditional Chinese medicine, a system of ideas and practice with a long documented history, rather than as an anatomical structure of Western physiology.
The Daily Cycle and the Earth Pair
In the Ziwu Liuzhu timetable, worked out in the Jin and Yuan periods of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from the older Neijing idea of sequential qi circulation, the Spleen channel governs nine to eleven in the morning, directly following the Stomach. The two are paired as the Earth phase's yin and yang channels and are together called houtian zhi ben, the root of postnatal qi, the source from which food and drink are transformed into what sustains the rest of the body; where the Stomach is said to receive and ripen what is eaten, the Spleen is said to complete the transformation and move the refined product upward to the Lung and Heart.