Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnostics

Ⅸ-2Traditional MedicineChina Academy of Chinese Medical SciencesBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added ItemFeatured

01 · Historical Records

Wang Shuhe of the Western Jin compiled and collected the Pulse Classic, carrying forward the past and opening up the future, and established the method of pulse diagnosis in Chinese medicine; physicians of successive generations continuously inherited and refined Chinese diagnostic methods in clinical practice, producing a large body of literature on diagnostic methods, such as the Prescriptions for the Three Causes and One Disease Pattern of the Song dynasty, Ao's Golden Mirror of Cold Damage of the Ming dynasty, and the Classic of Inspection Diagnosis of the Qing dynasty; nearly one hundred works on diagnostic methods survive to the present day. The wrist (cunkou) pulse is where the qi and blood of the body's zang-fu organs converge; the method of taking the pulse at the wrist alone was already established in the Classic of the Eighty-One Difficult Issues, written in the Han dynasty.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Chinese diagnostic methods are a component of Chinese medicine. Guided by Chinese medical theory, Chinese diagnostic methods mainly use the "four examinations" to examine disease, explore the cause, location, nature, and trend of disease, differentiate patterns, make a diagnosis of the disease, and provide a basis for treatment. Chinese diagnostic methods have a long history. Bian Que (Qin Yueren), the famous physician of the Warring States period, excelled at "feeling the pulse, observing the complexion, listening to the sounds, and describing the form, and speaking of where the disease lies". Based on the theories of yin-yang and the five phases and of visceral manifestation, channels, and collaterals, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon gave specific descriptions of the various diagnostic methods and expounded the principles of their comprehensive application, laying the foundation for the "four examinations" in methodology. Inspection is a diagnostic method in which the physician uses vision to observe the relevant parts of the patient's body and their secretions and excretions in order to understand the condition. It includes tongue inspection, inspection of the spirit, inspection of the complexion, inspection of the five sense organs, inspection of the form, and inspection of the collaterals. Among them, tongue inspection refers to observing the changes in the patient's tongue body and tongue coating to determine the condition and predict the prognosis; it is an important part of inspection. Listening and smelling is a diagnostic method in which the physician understands the condition by listening to the patient's sounds and smelling their odors. Listening to sounds means understanding changes in the patient's speech, breathing, coughing, vomiting, and hiccup through sound; smelling odors means using the sense of smell to detect abnormal odors in the patient's breath, body, and excretions. Inquiry is a diagnostic method in which the physician systematically and purposefully questions the patient or their companion in order to understand the condition comprehensively. Palpation is a diagnostic method in which the physician uses the sense of touch to feel, press, and experience the patient's wrist pulse and specific parts of the body surface in order to understand the condition. It mainly includes two parts: feeling the wrist pulse and pressing examination. Chinese diagnostic methods are methods of diagnosing disease that are distinctive to Chinese medicine; their potential scientific, technological, and humanistic connotations are playing an ever greater role with the development of medical science and extensive exchange between Chinese and foreign cultures. However, under the influence of Western medicine, the application of Chinese diagnostic methods is declining day by day.

Palpating the cun-kou pulse

The pulse is read at the three positions of the wrist, noting its shape and force to locate illness and weigh the balance of pathogen and vital qi.

Inspecting the tongue and its coat

Tongue body and coat are read for colour, swelling, teeth marks, thickness and moisture, mapping interior states onto the tongue.

Listening and smelling

Changes in speech, breathing, cough and hiccup, together with unusual odours, supply information that relies heavily on experience.

Palpating the channels

The body surface is pressed along specific zones to note temperature, hardness, tenderness and swelling, locating the site of illness.

Fixing the pattern from the four examinations

The results are synthesised into location, nature and trend of the illness, from which the treatment principle follows.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In long-term medical practice, Chinese medicine formed a complete set of theories, methods, techniques, and material objects for diagnosing disease, reflecting distinctive features of traditional Chinese culture and regional characteristics.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Deng Tietao (record of the associated inheritor's official archive): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1916, native of Kaiping, Guangdong. In a medical, teaching, and research career spanning seventy years, he proposed a series of theories that have influenced the development of modern medicine, including the doctrine of the interrelation of the five zang organs, the inheritance and development of the spleen-stomach doctrine, Chinese diagnostic methods, the integration of cold and warm approaches, the modern history of Chinese medicine, and strategic research on contemporary Chinese medicine. He excelled in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, especially coronary heart disease, hypertension, and perioperative complications of the heart, as well as neuromuscular diseases such as myasthenia gravis, and in the prevention and treatment of digestive system diseases such as chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Major projects he led include Clinical and Experimental Research on the Pattern Differentiation and Treatment of Myasthenia Gravis, Research on the Inheritance and Innovation of the Doctrine of the Interrelation of the Five Zang Organs in Chinese Medicine, Professor Deng Tietao's Clinical Research on the Pattern Differentiation and Treatment of AIDS, Research on Traditional Chinese Medicine Preparedness Plans for the Prevention and Treatment of Avian Influenza, and the Establishment and Research of Traditional Chinese Medicine Plans for the Prevention and Treatment of Influenza; he wrote A Practical Study of Chinese Medical Diagnosis and participated as a chief editor of the Great Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, among others. He was a representative inheritor of the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage project "Chinese Diagnostic Methods", a professor and doctoral supervisor at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, an executive council member of the All-China Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a recipient of the special government allowance of the State Council. From the late 1950s onward, Deng Tietao trained more than ten doctoral supervisors and more than ten master's supervisors, with his scholarship spanning internal medicine of Chinese medicine, the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, medical history and literature, and the fundamentals of Chinese medicine. Zhou Zhongying (record of the associated inheritor's official archive): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1928, native of Rudong, Jiangsu. Zhou Zhongying came from a family of Chinese medicine practitioners, studying Chinese medicine with his father Zhou Xiaozhai from childhood; he studied at the New China Medical College in Shanghai and entered the Nanjing Advanced Study School of Chinese Medicine in 1955. In the system of internal medicine, he was the first to propose that the zang-fu organs serve as the basis for the systematic classification of internal diseases, and on this basis compiled a General Treatise on Internal Medicine — An Outline of Pattern Differentiation and Treatment, playing a pioneering role in clinical specialization. In research on acute conditions, he summarized the basic pathological characteristics of acute conditions as the combination of internal and external pathogens, extreme excess and extreme deficiency, and simultaneous disease of multiple zang organs; he emphasized the important role of pathological factors such as wind, fire, heat, and toxin, constructed the academic system of acute internal medicine in Chinese medicine, and was the first to offer courses on acute internal medicine in Chinese medicine. In research on difficult and complicated diseases, he emphasized the pathogenic roles of phlegm, stasis, fire, and toxin, took pathological factors as the thread and zang-fu pathogenesis as the core, elucidated the concrete application of the methods of treating deficiency and excess, addressing the root and the branch according to urgency, and compound treatment, as well as their interrelations, and systematically summarized the pathological characteristics of difficult diseases and the laws of their pattern differentiation and treatment. He was a representative inheritor of the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage project "Chinese Diagnostic Methods", a professor, chief physician, and doctoral supervisor at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, and a recipient of the special government allowance of the State Council. He successively received honorary titles including National Advanced Scientific and Technological Worker in Higher Education, National Outstanding Graduate Supervisor, and National Famous Senior Chinese Medicine Practitioner; he led 10 national-level research projects, 6 ministerial-level projects, and more than 17 provincial-level or above projects, and wrote the academic monograph Treatise on Stasis and Heat, among others.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回英文名录。