P-09 (Zhong Chong) Central Hub

What does P-09 Zhong Chong do?

P-09 is the Jing-Well and Wood point of the Pericardium channel — and because the Pericardium is a yin FIRE channel, Wood is Fire’s mother, which makes P-09 the channel’s TONIFICATION point. It is also the channel’s last point, at the tip of the middle finger, and one of the classical emergency points.

• Clears heat from the Pericardium and revives consciousness — the Jing-Well function, shared across the twelve well points
• Clears the Heart and benefits the tongue — the Heart’s classical relationship with speech
• Clears summer-heat — the specific indication for heat stroke

The Pericardium five-shu roles, derived from this site’s own element records: P-09 is Wood, P-08 Lao Gong is Fire, P-07 Da Ling is Earth, P-05 Jian Shi is Metal, P-03 Qu Ze is Water. The channel is yin Fire, so:

• Tonification (mother) point — P-09 Zhong Chong (Wood, the mother of Fire) — this point
• Sedation (child) point — P-07 Da Ling (Earth, the child of Fire), which is also the Yuan-Source point
• Horary point — P-08 Lao Gong (Fire on a Fire channel) — not the sedation point, the trap our P-08 record flags

That agrees with the P-07 and P-08 records, each derived independently. Summer-heat is worth a word: it is the classical category for the effects of extreme heat, and its modern counterpart, heat stroke, is a medical emergency requiring immediate cooling and emergency care.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, element and action records; the full Pericardium five-shu series queried from our own data and checked against the P-07 and P-08 records), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is P-09 Zhong Chong used for?

P-09 is used for acute cardiac symptoms, loss of consciousness, heat stroke, fever, convulsions, and for loss of speech with a stiff swollen tongue. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Cardiac pain
• Palpitations
• Loss of consciousness
• Loss of speech with stiffness and swelling of the tongue
• Febrile disease
• Heat stroke
• Convulsions
• Feverish sensation in the palms

A necessary framing note, and it is the most important line on this page. Loss of consciousness, heat stroke, cardiac pain and convulsions are all medical emergencies requiring emergency medical care. This record describes the historical role of the Jing-Well points in first-aid; it is not a suggestion that any of these be managed with acupuncture, and nothing here should delay calling for help. The same framing is applied on DU-26 Shui Gou, Shi Xuan, LU-11 Shao Shang and HT-09 Shao Chong in this library.

Much of this list belongs to the category, not the point. The twelve Jing-Well points share the collapse, fever and acute-disturbance indications. What is distinctly P-09’s is the Pericardium content — the cardiac symptoms and the tongue — and the summer-heat entry.

“Feverish sensation in the palms” is a classical sign of yin deficiency with empty heat, traditionally grouped with heat in the soles and the chest. It is a diagnostic observation rather than a complaint, and it appears here because the Pericardium channel crosses the palm at P-08.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the Jing-Well set and the emergency-point records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is P-09 Zhong Chong located, and why are there two positions?

Our own record gives TWO alternative locations for P-09: the centre of the tip of the middle finger, or the radial corner of the middle fingernail. That is a genuine divergence in the source literature and this record keeps both rather than silently choosing.

• Primary, as our record gives it: in the centre of the tip of the middle finger
• Alternative, also in our record: at the radial side of the middle finger at the nail corner, located by the two-line method used for the other Jing-Well points

Why the divergence exists. Eleven of the twelve Jing-Well points sit at a nail corner; our LU-11 record notes that KI-01 Yong Quan is the sole exception, on the sole of the foot. P-09 is the point where sources disagree about whether it follows the nail-corner pattern or sits at the fingertip proper. Both readings are attested, and a reader encountering a prescription should know that two positions circulate.

This library’s standard on conflicting locations is to keep our own record unchanged and disclose the conflict rather than resolve it silently. Several other records here carry the same treatment — GB-39 on the fibular border, SP-15 on the abdominal measurement method, BL-62 on the malleolar hollow.

On the name. “Zhong Chong” means Central Hub or Middle Rushing. Zhong (central) marks the middle finger; chong suggests surging or rushing, as at ST-42 Chong Yang, where it describes an arterial pulse. Here it describes the qi welling up at a Jing-Well point.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged including both alternatives; the Jing-Well set and the other flagged location conflicts queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 382): In the centre of the tip of the middle finger. Alternatively, this point is sometimes located at the radial side of the middle finger, at the junction of lines drawn along the radial border of the nail and the base of the nail, approximately 0.1 cun from the corner of the nail.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 202): In the centre of the tip of the middle finger.

How is P-09 Zhong Chong needled?

The standard texts record superficial insertion to roughly 0.1 inch, or pricking with a three-edged needle to bleed; moxibustion is recorded as applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• As recorded: superficial, approximately 0.1 inch — there is almost no soft tissue at a fingertip.
• Bleeding technique: our own record documents pricking with a three-edged needle. This is the classical method for the collapse and heat-stroke indications and is recorded here as documented practice, not as procedure.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the digital nerves and the digital arteries run along the finger’s margins and into the pulp; the distal phalanx lies beneath.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a low-hazard point: no cavity, no major vessel, no large nerve trunk, and a recorded depth of a tenth of an inch. Fingertip points are notably painful — the pulp is densely innervated — which is a matter of tolerability rather than danger and is recorded here as such. Where blood is drawn, the ordinary considerations of any skin puncture apply, and this record does not describe how to perform it. No study measuring a safe depth at P-09 could be located, and no case report naming P-09 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record including the three-edged-needle technique, retained unchanged), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on P-09, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates P-09. Where the point appears it is one component of a resuscitation or stroke protocol, usually alongside DU-26 and the other Jing-Well points, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

The drift risk on this channel is the sharpest in the library. P-06 Nei Guan is the one acupuncture point with a genuinely strong Western evidence base — a 2025 Cochrane network meta-analysis of 77 trials and 9,847 participants — and our P-06 record also caught that a separate CINV Cochrane review was formally withdrawn in 2014. P-04, P-07 and now P-09 all carry the same warning: evidence about P-06 is evidence about P-06.

What this page can state with confidence. P-09 is the Jing-Well and Wood point, and therefore the tonification point of a yin Fire channel — checkable against our element records and agreeing with the P-07 and P-08 records derived independently. Our own record gives two alternative locations, and both are disclosed. And the emergency framing is not a hedge: these indications describe conditions where delay causes harm.

A note on searching for it. “PC 9”, “P 9” and “Zhongchong” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material. Note also that our library codes this channel P- while much of the literature uses PC-, and that “Zhong Chong” shares its first character with several other point names. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification and indication records; P-06's evidence base and withdrawn-review finding queried from our own data).