Dampness

Dampness is the main climatic factor of the late summer. The late summer is the dampest period of the year, as the summer starts to change into autumn and the intensity of yang-heat decreases, with fogs and mists everywhere, vapor ascending, and dampness prevailing. When dampness (the climatic factor) makes one ill, it is called dampness evil.

Dryness
Dryness is the main climatic factor of autumn. In autumn, the weather becomes cool and dry because the air is astringent and there is a shortage of moisture. The dryness evil most frequently takes the mouth and nose as its pathways to attack the defensive system of the lung. Diseases caused by the dryness evil can be divided into two categories: the warm dryness syndrome and cool dryness syndrome.

Fire
Fire comes into being when yang becomes predominant. Fire includes warm and heat. Warmth is milder than heat, whereas fire is more intense than heat. Heat mainly acts as an exogenous evil existing in different forms; for example, wind-heat, summer-heat and damp-heat, while fire mostly acts as an endogenous evil causing many kinds of syndromes, such as flaming up of the heart-fire, ascending of the liver-fire, and running wild of the gallbladder-fire.

Seven emotions

The seven emotions are seven sentimental changes, which include joy, anger, worry, anxiety, sadness, fear, and fright. The seven emotions represent different human reactions to objective reality, and do not cause disease under normal conditions. However, they may cause disease when there is sudden, strong or lasting sentimental