Pathology is the -ology=study of, pathos=suffering, or the origins of dis-ease. Diagnosis is the art and science of assessing the current situation in order to understand what has gone awry, and by extension how to best rectify it. Balance is the key concept; with health being relative balance, and ill-heath is off, or out of, balance. We must learn to 'read' the signs and symptoms in order to interpret what has happened and ultimately identify it with a 'name'. Chinese Medicine uses a number of naming templates to describe this, but mostly relies on an understanding of proper organ function and interactions as the basis of health, and their dysfunction, or less than optimal function, as the root of ill-health. The following books outline some of the basic concepts that students of Asian medicine must understand and utilize and why we often wind up using a kind of 'organ-speak' that can make little sense from a Western perspective, but is actually not so hard to understand.