SP-01 (Yin Bai) Hidden White

What does SP-01 Yin Bai do?

SP-01 is the Jing-Well and Wood point of the Spleen channel, and it is the classical point for stopping bleeding — particularly uterine bleeding. That bleeding action is what the point is known for, and it is unusual enough to be worth explaining rather than simply listing.

• Stops bleeding — the action our own record leads with, and the point’s defining use
• Regulates the Spleen — the organ action, for distension and digestive complaints
• Unbinds the chest
• Calms the Heart and spirit, and restores consciousness — the Jing-Well function, shared across the twelve well points

Why a point on the big toe stops uterine bleeding. In classical theory the Spleen governs the containment of blood within the vessels — blood escaping where it should not is a Spleen failing, not only a local problem. SP-01 is the Spleen channel’s most distal point and the one traditionally used when that containment fails. It is applied with moxibustion rather than needling for that purpose, which is recorded in the needling section below.

Working the five-shu role out from the elements, using this site’s own element records: the Spleen is yin Earth, and SP-01 is the Wood point. Wood is the element that controls Earth — so SP-01 is the controlling-element point, and is none of the three roles a reader usually looks for. Our own record for SP-03 Tai Bai establishes the others: SP-03 is Earth on an Earth channel and therefore the horary point, SP-02 Da Du (Fire, the mother) is the tonification point, and SP-05 Shang Qiu (Metal, the child) is the sedation point. The same controlling-element case appears at HT-03, SI-02 and LI-03 in this library.

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

What is SP-01 Yin Bai used for?

SP-01 is used for bleeding — especially heavy or prolonged menstrual bleeding — and for abdominal distension, disturbed sleep and mental-emotional conditions. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Excessive menstrual bleeding (menorrhagia)
• Uterine bleeding
• Blood in the stool
• Abdominal distension
• Mental and emotional disorders
• Dream-disturbed sleep
• Convulsions

An important framing note. Heavy or unexplained uterine bleeding and blood in the stool both require medical assessment. This record describes a classical use; it is not a suggestion that either be managed without diagnosis. The same framing is applied throughout this library to the collapse, resuscitation and haemorrhage indications.

The two halves of the list. The bleeding and distension items follow the Spleen actions; the sleep, spirit and convulsion items follow the Jing-Well function, which the twelve well points share — they are the classical points for sudden loss of consciousness and acute disturbance. LU-11 Shao Shang and HT-09 Shao Chong, both held here, carry the same pattern on their own channels.

How it is combined. With SP-06 San Yin Jiao, the crossing point of the three leg yin channels, and SP-10 Xue Hai, the “Sea of Blood”, for gynaecological bleeding. With SP-08 Di Ji, the Spleen’s Xi-Cleft point — and on a yin channel Xi-Cleft points carry their own bleeding indication, so the two reinforce each other. All are held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; SP-06, SP-08 and SP-10 classifications queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SP-01 Yin Bai located?

SP-01 is at the inner corner of the big toenail — where a line along the inner edge of the nail meets a line across its base, about 0.1 cun from the corner. The Spleen channel begins here and runs up the inner leg to SP-21 on the side of the chest.

• Medial (inner) corner of the great toenail, roughly 0.1 cun from the corner
• Located by the two-line method used for all twelve Jing-Well points
• LIV-01 Da Dun sits at the lateral corner of the same toenail — the two are on opposite corners of one nail, and both are held here

That neighbouring pair is worth knowing. SP-01 and LIV-01 are within a centimetre of each other on the same toe but belong to different channels with different classifications — LIV-01 is the Liver’s Jing-Well and Wood point, and being Wood on a Wood channel it is the horary point, where SP-01 is the controlling-element point. A prescription naming one is not interchangeable with the other.

On the name. “Yin Bai” means Hidden White. White is the colour associated with Metal and the Lung in five-phase theory, and the reading usually offered is that this is where the white of the toe’s underside is hidden at the transition to the nail — a descriptive name rather than a functional one.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; LIV-01's position and classification queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 182): On the dorsal aspect of the big toe, at the junction of lines drawn along the medial 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. 157): On the medial side of the great toe, 0.1 cun posterior to the corner of the nail.

How is SP-01 Yin Bai needled?

The standard texts record shallow subcutaneous insertion to roughly 0.1 inch, with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: subcutaneous, approximately 0.1 inch — there is almost no soft tissue at a nail corner.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable, and it is the method classically associated with this point’s principal use. Where the texts describe SP-01 for uterine bleeding, they describe moxibustion rather than needling.
• Regional anatomy: the dorsal digital nerves and the digital branches of the arteries run along the toe’s margins; the distal phalanx lies immediately beneath.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a low-hazard point — no body cavity, no major vessel, no large nerve trunk, and a recorded depth of a tenth of an inch. Nail-corner points are, however, notably painful, which is a matter of tolerability rather than danger and is recorded here as such. No study measuring a safe depth at SP-01 could be located, and none is borrowed; the measured safe-depth work in this library covers thoracic, lumbar, gluteal, orbital and neck points, none of which describe this one. No case report naming SP-01 as the site of an injury was located, and none is asserted.

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

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

SP-01 has more point-specific attention than most Jing-Well points, because of one particular use: it appears as the sham or control point in acupuncture trials. Our own record for BL-67 Zhi Yin — the breech-presentation moxibustion point — notes that in a large sham-controlled trial the control arm received moxibustion at SP-01. A point chosen to be inert in one trial is not thereby shown to be inert generally, but it is worth knowing that some of the literature naming SP-01 is using it as a comparator rather than testing it.

Beyond that, no trial isolates SP-01 for its own indications. Its standing rests on the classical record and on its position in the five-shu and Jing-Well systems.

The twelve Jing-Well points. SP-01 is one of the twelve, all of which this library holds. They sit at the fingertips and toe-tips (with one exception — KI-01 Yong Quan, which is on the sole), they are where the channels are classically said to begin, and they share the acute and consciousness-restoring indications. Reading SP-01 alongside LU-11, HT-09, LIV-01 and ST-45 shows how much of its indication list belongs to the category rather than to the point.

A note on searching for it. “SP 1” and “Yinbai” searches return trials in which the point is a control, protocol studies, and unrelated material matched on the code. This library has repeatedly found such searches returning entirely different subjects. Any claim attached to SP-01 should be checked against what a study actually measured — and against whether the point was the treatment or the comparator.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification records; the BL-67 trial's use of SP-01 as a sham site queried from our own data).