What is pulse diagnosis in Chinese medicine?
Pulse diagnosis is a Chinese medicine diagnostic method in which the pulse changes by pressing the pulse in different parts of the body, also called cut diagnosis. The history of pulse diagnosis in Chinese medicine can be traced back to the period of the “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine”. By the time Wang Shuhe’s “Pulse Classic” appeared in the Jin Dynasty, various monographs on pulse science were produced. In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen’s “The Pulse Study of the Lake” is a historical symbol of the development of Chinese medicine pulse diagnosis to maturity. The “The pulse study of Lake Endangered” captures the great achievements of the previous pulse studies and standardizes 27 Chinese medical pulse signs and their main diseases, which are widely adopted by later generations of physicians.
Modern medicine also does not deny the existence of the pulse. The scientific physiological explanation of pulse formation in Western medicine is that under normal conditions, the human heart ejects at least about 40m1 of blood per contraction, which enters the aortic arch under the elastic expansion of the aortic arch. The elastic recovery of the aortic arch carries this blood toward the distal heart segment. This elastic diastole and retraction creates a vibratory wave that propagates toward the distal end while continuously maintaining the direction of arterial blood transmission, creating a pulse wave at the flexural artery.
The clinically palpable pulse encompasses several types of information: how much blood is ejected from the heart, how much blood is circulating in the periphery, the blockage of the peripheral vessels, the viscosity of the blood, and changes in the elasticity of the vessels.
It can be seen that both Chinese medicine and modern medicine get information about certain physiological and pathological changes in the human body through the changes in the pulse.
Pulse diagnosis and pregnancy in women
When it comes to pulse diagnosis and women’s pregnancy, there is this description in the “Endangered Lake Pulse Study”: “Female pulse tuning when there is a fetus”, “Shaoyin moving very much, said to have a child, ulnar pulse slippery, pregnancy can be happy ……”, which means The woman’s pulse is often slippery during pregnancy because of the abundance of Qi and blood. The pulse of Shao-Yin moves rapidly and fluently, which is the pulse of pregnancy; the ulnar pulse is slippery, which is the sign of pregnancy.
Chinese medicine observed such a pattern, that is, the woman during pregnancy, the internal organs of qi and blood running state will be different from the non-pregnant period, and this difference is associated with the appearance of a specific pulse of women – slippery pulse. This is also the origin of the so-called Chinese medicine “pulse diagnosis to detect pregnancy” statement.
Pregnant women have slippery pulse, is the ancient physiological phenomenon of pregnancy and the pulse pattern of women’s experience summed up. And from the historical facts of Chinese medicine clinical, in the distant ancient times, in the absence of modern medical diagnostic technology can rely on, through the pulse diagnosis, and combined with the woman’s menstrual cycle changes, symptoms and signs changes, the correct diagnosis of women pregnant medical cases are indeed common. The pulse diagnosis as one of the technical means of verifying a woman’s pregnancy has never been questioned by either the Chinese medicine community or the patient community.
If the proposition of “pulse diagnosis for pregnancy” is understood literally, it seems that Chinese medicine can diagnose a woman’s pregnancy based on pulse diagnosis alone, which is a biased generalization.
In fact, this is how Chinese medicine diagnoses a woman’s pregnancy. When the doctor diagnoses the slippery pulse and other pulse suggesting pregnancy, he will further ask the woman whether she is married or not, whether she is separated from her husband, whether her past menstruation is normal, the time of her last menstruation, what changes in her recent diet, whether she has nausea and vomiting, and so on, to make a comprehensive judgment and propose a preliminary reference diagnosis of whether she is pregnant or not, and will suggest the patient to make further tests to confirm the diagnosis later.
It can be seen that Chinese medicine does not conclude that a woman is pregnant simply by saying that “Shao Yin is very active, which means that she has a child; the ulnar pulse is slippery, which means that she is pregnant”. Because, the diagnosis of diseases in Chinese medicine has always been based on the “four diagnoses together”. Since ancient times, Chinese medicine diagnosis, never cut diagnosis of the four diagnoses, from the look, smell, ask, cut, nor has the information of the cut diagnosis as the basis of diagnosis. As the preface to the opening chapter of the “endangered lake pulse”: “the world of medicine, disease two, salty to the pulse as the first priority, do not know that the pulse is the end of the four diagnoses, the so-called coincidental. The top scholar wants to know its whole, not the four diagnosis can not!”
Of course, the art of medicine is not very well known and wandering the jianghu also called the doctor of people, the medical profession is powerless to eliminate. These people must be in the Chinese medical profession and the Western medical profession, so it is better to remind many patients to go to the regular doctor’s office, regardless of their words and actions.
The so-called “pulse diagnosis pregnancy test” in today’s
Indeed, to modern times, pulse diagnosis as one of the medical diagnostic techniques for women’s pregnancy, is increasingly fading from the clinic, I think, there are three general reasons.
First, objectively, the development of modern medical diagnostics has provided more advanced and convenient technical means for the diagnosis of pregnancy in women.
Through the hormone level test, basal body temperature monitoring and other modern medical examination methods, combined with the woman’s recent symptoms and signs of change to determine the woman’s pregnancy, compared with the so-called “pulse diagnosis pregnancy test”, more scientific, accurate and fast. Chinese medicine soberly sees the development of modern medicine, the advanced achievements of modern medicine “fetishism”, this is Chinese medicine with the times, scientific reference to the advanced knowledge and technology of others, and constantly improve their own behavior. That is so, the so-called “pulse diagnosis pregnancy test” fade out of Chinese medicine clinical, the reason has become clear.
Secondly, subjectively, some of the current Chinese medicine clinical doctors on the pulse diagnosis technology in the lack of mastery, also led to the correct use of pulse diagnosis technology in the diagnosis of pregnancy in women, and this is not unrelated to the modern mode of inheritance of Chinese medicine.
Chinese medicine is the science of practice, is the science of experience, since ancient times, has been focused on one-on-one “teacher-apprentice” mode of transmission. This mode of inheritance, although the teacher’s academic ideas and technical experience in treating diseases can be passed on to future generations in a complete and accurate manner, the training period of talents is long and it is difficult to form a scale of talent training. In the modern academy education model, the talent training cycle is relatively fixed and can form a scale. However, it cannot be denied that the modern college-style education model is really difficult to make students master key theories and skills to the extent that they can be used skillfully in clinical practice, such as tongue diagnosis techniques and pulse diagnosis techniques, during their study in the college. Chinese medicine is to see this problem, how to solve this problem?
Thirdly, the use of advancement and abolition. This long ago French biologist Lamarck in his “philosophy of animals” proposed the theory of biological evolution, may be in today’s discussion of the so-called “pulse diagnosis of pregnancy”, and then “used” by Chinese medicine to learn a little.
According to the above two logics, is Chinese medicine helpless when it comes to diagnosing pregnancy in women? No, it is not. Because of the technical means of modern medicine. Please note that this is a blessing for mankind. Since this is the case, Chinese medicine does not exclude the use of it, and is no longer bound to how to master the relatively experience-dependent and difficult to master pulse diagnosis techniques to verify a woman’s pregnancy, do not see much need. Both Western and Chinese medicine are faced with many difficult female infertility patients in modern society, and it would be more logical and meaningful to devote more time and energy to the treatment of how to get them pregnant. Of course, we do not want to revive the debate on who is right and who is wrong, and it would be even more inappropriate to involve the patients in it.
Conclusion
In Chinese medicine, pregnancy is determined by the pulse, with particular emphasis on the “four diagnoses together”.
The pulse diagnosis has a certain clinical reference value for determining whether a woman is pregnant, but it should not be interpreted as the pulse clinic being able to make a sole judgment.