DU-13 (Tao Dao) Kiln Path

What does DU-13 Tao Dao do?

DU-13 clears heat and treats malaria, and it regulates the Governing Vessel — and it is one of very few points in this library whose recorded action names a specific named disease.

• Clears heat and treats malaria
• Regulates the Governing Vessel — the vessel’s own action, stated at its own point

The malaria entry needs its context stated plainly. Malaria appears in the classical indication literature because it was endemic across much of China, and the recurring fever-and-chills pattern was one the tradition described in detail. Malaria is a life-threatening infection that requires urgent diagnosis and prescribed antimalarial treatment. There is no circumstance in which suspected malaria should be managed by any classical indication on this page. This record documents what the historical literature holds; it makes no claim whatever that acupuncture treats malaria.

“Regulates the Governing Vessel” is worth a second look, because it is unusual for a point to be recorded as acting on the vessel it sits on. DU-13 lies at T1, immediately below DU-14 Da Zhui — the meeting point of the Governing Vessel with all six yang channels of the hand and foot, and the great fever point of the vessel. The two sit one vertebra apart and share the heat-clearing emphasis.

On the name. “Tao Dao” means Kiln Path. Tao is pottery or a kiln, and the reading usually offered relates the heat of a kiln to the point’s heat-clearing action — one of the few names on this vessel that describes function through an image rather than describing position. Its neighbours are mostly positional: DU-12 Shen Zhu (Body Pillar), DU-11 Shen Dao (Spirit Path).

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (vessel, action, location and translation records; the DU-11, DU-12 and DU-14 records queried against our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is DU-13 Tao Dao used for?

DU-13 is used for stiffness of the back, headache, malaria and febrile disease. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full — four entries.

• Stiffness of the back
• Headache
• Malaria
• Febrile diseases

Half the list is fever, and that is what this stretch of the vessel is for. The upper back and neck points of the Governing Vessel carry the fever and exterior-pattern indications — our DU-14 record, one level above, sets that out. Stiffness of the back is local; headache follows the vessel up over the head.

An honest note, and it is the most important passage on this page. MALARIA IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Fever in anyone who has travelled to a malarial region requires immediate medical assessment — falciparum malaria can kill within days, and it is diagnosable and treatable. Fever with neck stiffness and headache is a combination requiring urgent assessment in any circumstance. This record documents classical indications in a historical system; it makes no claim that acupuncture treats malaria or any febrile illness, and nothing here should delay care.

How it is combined. With DU-14 Da Zhui one level above — the two are commonly used together for fever. With BL-11 Da Zhu at the same T1 level, 1.5 cun to each side. With BL-12 Feng Men and BL-13 Fei Shu below. With LI-04 He Gu and SJ-05 Wai Guan distally for exterior patterns. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the BL-11, BL-12, BL-13, DU-14, LI-04 and SJ-05 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is DU-13 Tao Dao located?

DU-13 is on the midline of the upper back, in the depression below the spinous process of the FIRST thoracic vertebra.

• On the midline, below the T1 spinous process
• DU-14 Da Zhui lies one level above, below C7; DU-12 Shen Zhu below at T3
• BL-11 Da Zhu sits at the same level, 1.5 cun to each side, and BL-41 Fu Fen at 3 cun

This is where counting the back begins, which makes it the most consequential level on the spine. DU-14 sits below the prominent vertebra at the base of the neck, and every point down the back is counted from there — so T1, immediately below it, is the first step of a chain that runs the length of the body. An error here displaces everything beneath it. Our BL-11 record notes the complication: C7 and T1 can both be prominent, and in some people T1 is the more prominent of the two, so the starting vertebra is not always self-evident.

The three-line arrangement is complete at this level — DU-13 on the midline, BL-11 at 1.5 cun, BL-41 at 3 cun — and this library holds records for all three, so a reader can read straight across the back at T1.

Note the gap above. DU-14 is below C7 and DU-13 below T1, so the two are consecutive; but this vessel is not one point per vertebra further down. Querying every recorded level, the thoracic Governing Vessel points sit at T1, T3, T5, T6, T7, T9, T10 and T11 — so T2, T4, T8 and T12 carry no point at all, four gaps in twelve levels. Our DU-06 record sets out the same problem lower down.

On the name. “Tao Dao” — Kiln Path. Dao, a path or way, is shared with DU-11 Shen Dao (Spirit Path) two points below.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; the BL-11, BL-41, DU-08, DU-09, DU-11, DU-12 and DU-14 records queried, and the absence of T2 and T8 points confirmed, against our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 544): On the midline of the upper back, in the depression below the spinous process of the first thoracic vertebra.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 231): Below the spinous process of the first thoracic vertebra.

How is DU-13 Tao Dao needled, and what does its measured depth actually measure?

Our own record states OBLIQUE UPWARD insertion of 0.5–1.0 inch, with moxibustion applicable — and DU-13 is one of the 23 points with a published measured depth. What that figure measures is the single most important thing on this page. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature and the published measurements document. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique.

• Angle and depth as recorded: oblique, directed upward, 0.5–1.0 inch. Our record specifies the direction; the upward obliquity follows the downward slope of the thoracic spinous processes, keeping the needle against bone.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the supraspinous and interspinous ligaments lie in the midline with trapezius and the erector spinae either side; the vertebral arch lies beneath, and within the canal the spinal cord — T1 is far above the cord terminus at L1–L2, which our DU-03 and DU-05 records set out.

The measurement, and the distinction that goes with it. A study measuring safe needling depth at 23 back and shoulder points on paediatric chest CT gives DU-13 as 33.61 mm in boys and 30.59 mm in girls on average. For the Governing Vessel points the measure is skin to the EPIDURAL LAYER — not skin to the pleura, which is what the same study measures at every off-midline point (Wang J et al., PMID 26922245, PMC4769822). These are paediatric figures and are not adult values.

Here is why that distinction is not academic, and this point is where it shows most sharply. At the very same T1 level, the same study gives BL-11 Da Zhu — 1.5 cun to the side — as 33.39 mm in boys. DU-13 is 33.61 mm. The two figures are within a quarter of a millimetre of each other, and they measure completely different structures: one is the distance to the epidural space around the spinal cord, the other the distance to the lung’s covering. A reader comparing the numbers alone would conclude the two points are equivalent. They are not. Any figure taken from this study must be read together with which layer it was measured to.

Hazard, stated proportionately. With the needle oblique and upward against the spinous processes, bone lies beneath it, and the recorded depth keeps it in ligament and muscle. This is not a high-hazard point. The measured figure is what makes the recorded bound meaningful rather than arbitrary.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record including the recorded upward obliquity, retained unchanged); PMID 26922245 / PMC4769822 (paediatric chest CT; DU-13 among the 23 measured points, skin-to-EPIDURAL for Governing Vessel points; BL-11's same-level skin-to-pleura figure compared directly); regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on DU-13, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates DU-13. Where the point appears it is one component of a fever, neck or back protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

The research that names DU-13 is anatomical — the paediatric CT study — and its value here is the distinction it forces rather than the number itself.

What this page can state with confidence. DU-13 sits below T1, one level under DU-14, at the top of the counting chain that fixes every point down the back. Its measured depth of 33.61 mm in boys and 30.59 mm in girls is measured skin to the EPIDURAL layer, because it is a Governing Vessel point. And BL-11 at the same level measures 33.39 mm to the PLEURA — a figure so close to it that reading either number without its definition would mislead. That comparison is the reason this page exists in the form it does.

The malaria warning bears repeating. Fever in anyone who has travelled to a malarial region needs immediate medical assessment. It is the one place on this page where a classical indication and modern practice diverge completely, and no acupuncture claim is made or implied.

A note on searching for it. “GV 13”, “DU 13” and “Taodao” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material matched on transliteration. Our library codes this vessel DU- while much of the literature uses GV- — and note that the CT study cited above uses the GV convention throughout, so its DU-13 figure appears there as GV13. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used, and to which layer it measured.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (action, indication and location records; the BL-11 record and the full 23-point table queried and compared against our own data); PMID 26922245 for the measured depths and the layer definitions.