About
The character 臌 follows a phono-semantic structure: the semantic radical 肉 (in its form ⺼) appears on the left, while 鼓 serves as the phonetic component on the right. In traditional Chinese medicine and historical pathology, 臌 denotes bodily swelling, specifically dropsy or edema involving fluid accumulation in tissues or the abdominal cavity. The phonetic component 鼓, meaning drum, visually echoes the symptom, comparing a patient’s taut, distended abdomen to a stretched drumhead. The term is used almost exclusively in medical literature to describe this form of physical distension.