Du Mai (Governing Vessel) Channel
Great Hammer
大椎Dà ZhuīAnatomical location
Below the spinous process of C7.
Main function
Expels Wind, regulates Qi and Blood, relieves neck pain.
- Crossing point with the Bladder, Large Intestine, Small Intestine, Triple Energizer, Gallbladder
Therapeutic indications
- Neck pain
- fever
- cough
- asthma
- epilepsy
- stiff neck
- Common cold
- Malaria
- Shoulder and back pain
- Hives
- Acne
- Night sweats
- Low immunity
- Ankylosing spondylitis
Name and classical tradition
Dazhui, 大椎, is the “great vertebra.” 大 is great; 椎 is the vertebra, and originally the mallet, the instrument for striking. The point lies below the seventh cervical vertebra, the most prominent one at the base of the neck, the one you can feel when you tilt your head forward. The name is anatomical. A modern gloss also reads it as an abundance of Qi and Blood, with no ancient basis.
It is one of the best-attested Du Mai points in the Suwen (Basic Questions): the sources trace it to the chapter Qi Fu Lun (氣府論). The tradition considers it the meeting point of the three hand and foot yang channels with the Du Mai (三陽、督脈之會), which explains its use, throughout the later literature, as a regulator of Yang in the whole body and in fever.
The reference works give it the alternative names 百勞, “hundred fatigues,” 上杼, and 大椎骨. The name 上杼 links it to BL11, Dazhu, whose name refers to the “shuttle bone,” the same bony prominence at the base of the neck.
