HT-01 (Ji Quan) Highest Spring

What does HT-01 Ji Quan do?

HT-01 unbinds the chest, and it activates the channel and benefits the arm — and it is the first point of the Heart channel, sitting in the centre of the armpit over the great vessels of the arm.

• Unbinds the chest — relieving a tight, oppressed sensation, the Heart channel’s chest action
• Activates the channel and benefits the arm — the local action, the channel running down the inner arm from here

The Heart channel starts at the armpit and runs down the inner arm to the little finger. HT-01 is its origin, and its indications reflect both ends of that course: the chest and cardiac region above, and the arm below. A point in the axilla carrying arm pain is the channel’s own pathway.

On the name. “Ji Quan” means Highest Spring — ji the summit or extreme, quan a spring or source. The reading usually offered has this as the highest point of the Heart channel, the spring from which it flows down the arm. Quan, a spring, names other points where qi is said to well up — KI-01 Yong Quan (Gushing Spring) at the sole, P-02 Tian Quan (Celestial Spring) on the same upper arm. Here it marks the source of the channel.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, action, location and translation records; the KI-01 and P-02 records queried against our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is HT-01 Ji Quan used for?

HT-01 is used for pain in the flank and cardiac region, scrofula, cold pain of the elbow and arm, and dryness of the throat. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Pain in the costal and cardiac regions
• Scrofula
• Cold pain of the elbow and arm
• Dryness of the throat

An honest note, and two entries need one stated plainly.

• CARDIAC PAIN IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Chest pain — especially with breathlessness, sweating, nausea, or pain spreading to the arm, neck or jaw — requires emergency medical care immediately; and pain spreading down the inner arm, exactly the Heart channel’s course from this point, is a classic feature of a heart attack. This record documents a classical indication and makes no claim that acupuncture treats cardiac disease; nothing here should delay emergency care.
• “SCROFULA” MEANS TUBERCULOSIS OF THE LYMPH NODES OF THE NECK — historically common, and a cause of the chronic firm neck swellings the classical texts describe. It is a serious infection requiring diagnosis and prescribed treatment. Any persistent, firm or growing lump in the neck or armpit requires medical assessment, since the causes range from infection to lymphoma. This is a reference entry, not a treatment claim.

Why the armpit for scrofula. The point sits among the axillary lymph nodes, and the classical scrofula indication reflects its position over swellings of that region — stated as a positional correspondence, not a mechanism.

How it is combined. With HT-03 Shao Hai at the elbow and HT-07 Shen Men at the wrist for the channel and the cardiac indications. With P-06 Nei Guan distally — the point with the strongest evidence for cardiac and nausea symptoms. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the HT-03, HT-07 and P-06 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is HT-01 Ji Quan located?

HT-01 is in the centre of the armpit, where the pulse of the armpit artery can be felt.

• In the depression at the centre of the axilla
• With the arm raised, in the hollow of the armpit, medial to the axillary artery’s pulse

The artery is part of the location, and it is the whole character of this point. The axillary artery runs through the centre of the armpit and its pulse is palpable there — and the point is located in relation to it. So, as at ST-09 beside the carotid and ST-05 beside the facial artery, the vessel both fixes the position and is what the needling record warns about. This library has now documented that pattern at several points, and HT-01 is the axillary case.

A practical note. The axilla is a private and sensitive region, and treatment here calls for the same standards of consent, positioning and professional conduct that apply to any examination of that area. The arm is raised to open the hollow, and the point is found by feel.

On the name. “Ji Quan” — Highest Spring, the source of the channel at its top.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; the ST-05 and ST-09 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 212): In the depression at the centre of the axilla.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 164): When the upper arm is abducted, the point is in the centre of the axilla, on the medial side of the axillary artery.

How is HT-01 Ji Quan needled, and what does our record warn about?

Our own record OPENS with the caution — “AVOID PUNCTURING THE AXILLARY ARTERY” — naming the specific vessel, before it gives any angle or depth. Perpendicular insertion of 0.5–1.0 inch is then recorded. That ordering is retained here because it reflects what matters at this point. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique.

• Our record states first: avoid puncturing the axillary artery. It runs through the centre of the axilla, and its pulse is what our own location record uses to find the point — so the needle is placed with reference to the very vessel it must avoid.
• Angle and depth as recorded: perpendicular, 0.5–1.0 inch.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the axillary artery and vein and the brachial plexus — the great nerve trunks supplying the whole arm — run together through the centre of the axilla; the axillary lymph nodes lie in the fat around them; the muscles of the chest and shoulder form the walls.

This is one of the more anatomically consequential points in the library, and the record leads with the vessel for that reason. The axilla contains a major artery, a major vein and the entire nerve supply of the arm in a small space — the axillary neurovascular bundle. HT-01 is one of only two points in this library whose arterial caution names a specific vessel — the axillary here, and the common carotid at ST-09 — and finding these two corrected an earlier undercount in this project: nine points carry an explicit arterial caution, not six, because a query written to match the commonest phrasing had missed exactly these two named-vessel forms. The nine are ST-05, ST-09, ST-42, SP-12, SJ-22, HT-01, LU-08, LU-09 and LI-13.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at HT-01 could be located, and none is borrowed. Neither measured-depth study this library uses reaches the axilla. No case report naming HT-01 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record including the arterial caution, retained verbatim and in its recorded order; every needling record re-queried with a corrected pattern and the nine explicit arterial cautions counted; the ST-05 and ST-09 records compared), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on HT-01, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates HT-01. Where the point appears it is one component of a cardiac or arm protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point. It is a less-used point than its channel-mates, in part because of its location.

What this page can state with confidence. HT-01 is the first point of the Heart channel, in the centre of the axilla. Its record carries an explicit caution naming the axillary artery — one of the named-vessel cautions in the library, with ST-09’s carotid, and one of nine arterial cautions in all. The axillary artery is both how the point is located and what the caution warns about, the same landmark-is-the-hazard pattern as ST-42, LU-09, ST-05 and SJ-22. And the axilla holds the whole neurovascular bundle of the arm, which is why the record leads with the vessel.

The two warnings are the operative content. Cardiac pain is an emergency, and a persistent lump in the neck or armpit needs assessment.

A note on searching for it. “HT 1”, “HE 1”, “H 1” and “Jiquan” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material — and this channel is coded several ways: HT, HE and H. Our library uses HT-. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (action, indication, location and needling records; every needling record re-queried for arterial cautions and the nine counted, and the ST-05 and ST-09 records compared, against our own data).