DIAGNOSTICS
There are five diagnostic methods:
•Inspection: Focuses on parts of the face such as the skin, eyes, aura, and tongue (e.g. marks around the edge, cracks, and in particular the coating).
•Auscultation: Listening for particular sounds such as wheezing.
•Olfaction: Smelling body odor
•Inquiry: Focuses on the ‘seven inquiries.” Asking the patient about the regularity, severity, or characteristics of: chills, fever, perspiration, appetite, thirst, taste, defecation, urination, pain, sleep, menses, leukorrhea.
•Palpation: Feeling the body for tender A-shi points, palpation of the wrist pulses as well as various other pulses, including the palpation of the abdomen.
SIX EXCESSES & CHARACTERISTIC CLINICAL SIGNS
The six excesses patterns can consist of one or a combination of excesses. They can also transform from one into another.
•Wind (pinyin feng): rapid onset of symptoms, wandering location of symptoms, itching, nasal congestion, floating pulse, tremor, paralysis, convulsion.
•Cold (pinyin: han) cold sensations, aversion to cold, relief of symptoms by warmth, water/clear excreta, severe pain, abdominal pain, contractor/hypertonicity of muscles, (slimy white tongue fur, deep/hidden or string-like pulse, or slow pulse.
•Fire/Heat pinyin: ho): aversion to heat, high fever, thirst, concentrated urine, red face, red tongue, yellow tongue fur, ‘slippery’ pulse.
•Dampness (pinyin:shi): sensation of heaviness, sensation of fullness, symptoms of Spleen dysfunction, greasy tongue fur, “slippery’ pulse.
•Dryness (pinyin: zao): dry cough, dry mouth, dry throat, dry lips, nose bleeds, dry skin, dry stools.
•Summer heat (pinyin: shu): either heat or mixed damp-heat symptoms.
YIN/YANG
Yin and yang are universal aspects all things can be classified under. This includes the Eight Principles’ first three couples. For example, cold is identified as yin, while heat is yang.
The yin/yang concept can be traced back to the Shang dynasty (1600-1100BC). They represent to complementary aspects that every phenomenon in the universe can be divided into. Primordial analogies for these aspects are shown in the chart below:
FIVE PHASES
Five Phases or the Five Elements presumes that all phenomena of the universe and nature can be broken down into five elemental qualities represented by wood,
fire, earth, metal, and water. The five phases constitute the basis of the zang-fu concept and have a great influence of the body. The Five Phase concept is also applied in diagnosis and therapy. Correspondences between the body and the universe are seen not only between the Five Elements, but also between the Great Numbers (pinyin: ad shu).