For example, understanding the womb and its fundamental difference from male bodies was irrelevant. Traditional Chinese medicine did not recognize the womb as the place of reproduction. For the Chinese, the abdominal cavity presented pathologies that were similar in both men and women, which included tumors, growths, hernias, and swellings of the genitals. The "master system" as Charlotte Furth identifies, is the kidney visceral system, which governed reproductive functions in TCM. Therefore, it was not the anatomical structures in women that allowed for pregnancy, but the difference in female processes that allowed for the affliction of pregnancy to occur.