Chinese Idiom: 洞见症结 (Dong Jian Zheng Jie)
English Translation: See through the crux of a problem
pīn yīn: dòng jiàn zhèng jié
Idiom Meaning: This idiom describes a doctor who diagnoses accurately and can pinpoint the location of a patient’s ailment. It is often used metaphorically to describe someone with sharp insight, capable of seeing beyond the surface to understand the essence or key issues of a problem.
Historical Source: “Records of the Grand Historian” (《史记 · 扁鹊仓公列传》).
Idiom Story:
According to the “Records of the Grand Historian,” during the early Warring States period, there was a highly skilled folk doctor named Qin Yuer, who came from the Bohai region. His exceptional medical skills led people to compare him to the legendary physician Bian Que from the era of the Yellow Emperor, and thus he was revered as “Bian Que.”
In his youth, Yuer worked as a manager at an inn, where he met a long-term guest named Chang Sangjun. Noticing Chang’s extraordinary demeanor, Yuer suspected that he was a person of great abilities and treated him with special respect, serving him diligently. When Yuer discovered that Chang was also a folk doctor, he humbly sought to learn medical skills from him.
After more than ten years of study, Chang finally revealed his secret remedies to Yuer. With Chang’s teachings, Yuer dedicated himself to study and not only mastered the medical principles and prescriptions but also developed his own methods. He established diagnostic techniques based on pulse palpation, observing physical appearances, listening to patients’ voices, and inquiring about their symptoms. This allowed him to diagnose various ailments clearly.
As a result, Qin Yuer’s medical theories greatly influenced the development of medicine in China. The phrase “以此视病，尽见五脏症结” (using this method to diagnose, one can fully perceive the crux of the internal organs) was later simplified and extended into the idiom “洞见症结.”
