Cough is mentioned in the "Yellow Emperor's Classic" where a whole chapter is dedicated to it.
The two characters of its Chinese name, Ke Sou, originally referred to two different types of
cough. The "Collection of Life-Saving Pathologies from the Simple Questions" (1186) says:
"Ke" denotes cough with a sound but without phlegm: this indicates injury of the
Lungs. "Sou" denotes cough with phlegm but without sound: this indicates that
the Spleen is obstructed by Phlegm. "Ke-Sou" therefore denotes a cough with
both sound and phlegm due to injury of the Lungs and Phlegm from the
Spleen.1(150)Chapter 23 of the "Simple Questions" relates different sounds to different organs and it says:
"Diseases of Qi manifest ... in the Lungs with cough ...."2(151)
Chapter 38 of the "Simple Questions", entirely dedicated to cough, says that cough does not
depend only on the Lungs but may be caused by each of the five Yin organs:
Lung-cough [is accompanied by] breathlessness and spitting of blood;
Heart-cough by pain in the heart region and a feeling of an obstruction in the
throat; Liver-cough by hypochondrial fullness and pain ... Kidney-cough by
backache ... Spleen-cough by right hypochondrial pain ...3(152)It then goes on to say that when cough is prolonged it may transmit from the Yin organs to their
related Yang organs:
When the cough of the five Yin organs persists for a long time it will be
transmitted to the six Yang organs. If a Spleen-cough persists for a long time it
will transmit to the Stomach ... [causing] vomiting on coughing ... If a
Liver-cough persists for a long time it will transmit to the Gall-Bladder ...
[causing] coughing of bile. If a Lung-cough persists for a long time, it will
transmit to the Large Intestine ... [causing] bowel incontinence on coughing. If a
Heart-cough persists for a long time it will transmit to the Small Intestine ...
[causing] flatulence on coughing. If a Kidney-cough persists for a long time it
will transmit to the Bladder ... [causing] incontinence of urine on coughing. Any
chronic cough will affect the Triple Burner ... [causing] cough with abdominal