Heart Channel
Lesser Mansion
少府Shào FǔAnatomical location
In the palm, between the fourth and fifth metacarpals, where the little finger touches when making a fist.
Main function
Clears Heat from the Heart, calms the Shen, relieves pain.
- Ying-Spring Point (Fire)
Therapeutic indications
- Palpitations
- chest pain
- dysuria
- pain in the little finger
- heat in the palm
- genital itching and pain
- enuresis
- pain of the little finger
- anxiety
- sadness
Name and classical tradition
Shaofu, 少府, is the “mansion of the Shaoyin.” 少 refers to the channel; 府, the mansion, the residence, the storehouse where something gathers. The modern gloss sees in the point the place where the channel’s warm Qi concentrates, as in a house. The reading makes sense given its function: Shaofu is the Ying-Spring point (滎穴) of the Heart, which on the Yin channels corresponds to Fire, and it is therefore the Fire point of the Fire channel. Tradition has used it for Heart Heat. No ancient commentator explains it in those terms.
Its first mention is in the Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing (Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion). Like its neighbors on the channel, it does not appear in the Ben Shu of the Lingshu (Spiritual Pivot). It is in the palm, between the fourth and fifth metacarpals, and has its counterpart on the Pericardium channel in PC8, Laogong, also a Ying-Spring and Fire point, at the center of the palm. No well-documented alternative names or specific classical commentaries are known.
