Diagnostics
Following a macro philosophy of disease, traditional Chinese diagnostics is based on the overall observation of human symptoms rather than the “micro” level laboratory tests. There are four types of Traditional Chinese medicine diagnostic methods: inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry and palpation examinations. The pulse-reading component of the touching examination is so important that Chinese patients may refer to going to the doctor as “going to have my pulse felt”.
Traditional Chinese medicine is considered to require considerable diagnostic skills. A training period of years or decades is said to be necessary for Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners to understand the full complexity of symptoms and dynamic balances. A Chinese saying goes, “a good (traditional Chinese medicine) doctor is also qualified to be a good prime minister in a country.” Modern Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in China often use a traditional system in combination with Western methods.
Techniques
Palpation of the patient’s radial artery pulse (pulse diagnosis in six positions).
- Observation of the appearance of the patient’s tongue. Observation of the patient’s face.
- Palpation of the patient’s body (especially the abdomen) for tenderness.
- Observation of the sound of the patient’s voice. Observation of the surface of the ear.
- Observation of the vein on the index finger on small children.
- Comparisons of the relative warmth or coolness of different parts of the body.
- Observation of the patient’s various odors.
- Asking the patient about the effects of his problem.
- Anything else that can be observed without instruments and without harming the patient.
Treatments
The below methods are considered as part of the Chinese medicine treatment:
- Chinese herbal medicine
- Acupuncture and Moxibustion
- Die Da or Tieh Ta
- Chinese food therapy
- Tui Na massage therapy
- Qigong and related breathing and meditation exercise
- Physical exercise such as Taijiquan and other Chinese martial arts
- Mental health therapy such as Feng Shui and Chinese astrology
Specific Treatment Methods
Specific treatment methods are grouped into these branches: Cupping and skin-scrapping are part of Tui Na. Auriculotherapy comes under the heading of Acupuncture and Moxibustion.Die Da practitioners are those who specialize in healing trauma injury such as bone fractures, sprains, and bruises. Some of these specialists may also use or recommend other disciplines of Chinese medical therapies if serious injury is involved. Such practice of bone-setting is not common in the West.
Acupuncture and Moxibustion Therapy
Acupuncture and moxibustion therapy, with a history of thousands of years in China, is at the core of Chinese medicine.
Acupuncture therapy involves jabbing specially made metal needles of different length into the patient’s body at certain acupuncture points, treating the patient by twirling or lifting the needles. Moxibustion therapy requires the placement of burning crushed dry moxa near or on the skin at certain acupuncture points, treating by the irritation of heat.
In ancient China, there were many well-known doctors using acupuncture and moxibustion therapy to treat patients, such as Bian Que of the Spring and Autumn Period and Hua Tuo of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who had treated some difficult and complicated cases, and thus were acclaimed as miracle-workers. In 1027 AD, a medical official of acupuncture and moxibustion of the Song Dynasty Wang Weiyi designed and made two bronze human figures marked with acupuncture points, carefully carved 12 channels and vessels and 354 acupuncture points on the figures for people to use when learning the therapy. This was the earliest bronze human figure for medical use in China.
Nowadays, acupuncture and moxibustion therapy is not only widely used in China to relieve people of their diseases; it has also spread around the world.
Huangdi Neijing
Huangdi Neijing, also known as Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, is an ancient Chinese medical text that has been treated as the fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia. It is comparable in importance to the Hippocratic Corpus in Greek medicine or the works of Galen in Islamic and medieval European medicine. The work is composed of two texts, each of which has eighty-one chapters or treatises in a question-and-answer format between the mythical Huangdi and six of his equally legendary ministers.
The first text, the Suwen , also known as Basic Questions, covers the theoretical foundation of Chinese medicine and its diagnostic methods. The second and generally less referred to text, the Lingshu Spiritual Pivot , discusses acupuncture therapy in great detail. Collectively, these two texts are known as the Neijing or Huangdi Neijing. In practice, however, the title Neijing often refers only to the more influential Suwen.
