The Donguibogam's Five Divisions, Explained in Full

Twenty-five volumes, organized in an order that reflects a specific medical philosophy — understand the body before you treat its diseases.

The Donguibogam runs to 25 volumes bound in 25 books, and it isn't organized alphabetically or by disease name. It's arranged in five divisions, in a deliberate sequence, and that sequence tells you something about how its compilers thought about medicine itself.

Naegyeong-pyeon (內景篇) — the body's internal landscape

The work opens not with symptoms or treatments but with the body's internal systems: qi and blood, the spirit, the five viscera and six bowels, sleep, and the general physiology that everything else is built on. The logic is straightforward — you cannot properly understand a disorder until you understand what a functioning body is doing in the first place.

Oehyeong-pyeon (外形篇) — the body's outer form

The second division moves outward, covering the head, face, eyes, ears, limbs, skin, and other externally visible parts of the body, along with the conditions that manifest there. Having established the internal picture first, the text now addresses what a physician can actually observe from the outside.

Japbyeong-pyeon (雜病篇) — general and miscellaneous disorders

This is by far the largest division, covering diagnostic methods, epidemic and seasonal disease, and a wide range of common disorders, including conditions specific to women and children. Its size reflects its role as the practical clinical core of the text — this is where internal theory and external observation come together into actual diagnosis.

Tangaek-pyeon (湯液篇) — the herbology volume this site is built on

Having laid out the body and its disorders, the text turns to one of its two treatment modalities: substances, from herbs to minerals to animal products, each described by nature, taste, and traditional action. We cover this section in far more depth in its own column, since it's the source for every herb page on this site.

Chimgu-pyeon (鍼灸篇) — acupuncture and moxibustion

The final division covers the second treatment modality: the meridian system, acupuncture points, and moxibustion technique. Placing it last, after the substances of Tangaek-pyeon, completes the sequence from theory (內景) to observation (外形) to diagnosis (雜病) to the two hands-on treatment methods available to a physician of the era.