Essential Experimental Methods for Identifying Bonghan Systems as a Basis for Korean Medicine: Focusing on Visual Materials from Original Papers and Modern Outcomes

Figure 1

The intraexternal Bonghan systems. (A) The intraexternal Bonghan systems by the Bonghan research team. Diagram of the intraexternal Bonghan systems. The Bonghan ducts and corpuscles are distributed, independent of the paths of vessels and nerves, all throughout the body like a network. The Bonghan ducts exist in a free state, but they adhere to the surfaces of the organs and the walls of the blood vessels only in the region where they branch off [5]. (B) The intraexternal Bonghan systems stained by Trypan blue. Trypan blue-stained primo vascular system network on the mesentery of dog. The inset shows a high-magnified primo node (arrows) located at the joints of the primo vessels [16]. (C) The flow of liquor in the intraexternal Bonghan systems. The flow of Alcian blue (thick arrow, a) through a Bonghan duct connected to the corpuscles (arrowheads) on the surface of a rabbit’s abdomen organ and a magnified view (b) of the boxed segment showing blue fluid inside the Bonghan duct and corpuscle (dotted red line) under a phase-contrast microscope. All scale bars are 50 μm [17].