Pulse
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PULSE Pulse diagnosis features in most Asian systems of medicine. Chinese medicine uses primarily the pulse of the radial artery on the wrists; the practitioner regards strength, width, and quality at different depths and different positions and this gives information regarding the functioning of the organism as a whole. WHY ? well consider this…..
- The pulse system gives us a way of diagnosing
- The diagnosis gives us a way of treating
- If the treatment improves the patient in a statistically significant number of cases this validates the information coming from the pulse diagnosis.
Actually there are many ways the body shows its inner workings on the surface if you have a suitable system to interpret. A simple example is defects at the skin above the spine or other joints in problem areas. Or ‘alarm’ points in classical acupuncture theory, or ‘kori’ in Japanese abdominal diagnosis. In so many ways the surface of the living body informs the focussed, listening, practitioner. HISTORY A very famous sixteenth century physician called Li Shi Zhen wrote a text (Bin Hu Mai Xue) on pulses which is probably the basis of pulses as taught in current Chinese Medicine. Prior to that the 2nd century work by Wang Shu He was thought to be founded on the pulse diagnosis section of the Shang Han Zhabing Lun now lost from the Song dynasty version of that text. The question that maybe needs asking is how well is any of this taught to us? We need to go back to the traditions of teaching Chinese Medicine; the accumulation and development of theory and knowledge by the court physicians, but also the lineage masters practically handing down the expertise accumulated by them and their teachers before them. Pulse diagnosis is a science. It has to be; ten out of ten practitioners (of the same system of pulse diagnosis) should be able to deliver the same verdict on a pulse quality. Otherwise the system is useless. Here then the teacher becomes everything, for what is being taught is HOW to palpate (feel) the pulse in order to access the information it holds. DR J SHEN’S CONTRIBUTION: I first encountered Dr John Shen just as I was graduating as an acupuncturist; he was giving a seminar which involved diagnosing difficult cases that practitioners had brought; his expertise at pulse diagnosis was astonishing. I later found that he’d studied in Shanghai in the 1930s and then with a lineage master. Extensive clinical work in Shanghai, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam etc allowed him to enhance his pulse diagnosis over the next 30 years and when he went to New York in 1971, Leon Hammer (in particular) translated some of his wisdom on pulses into a system of teaching that allows all who use it to become consistent and fluent. I met one of the people who had been around Dr Shen at that time, and had studied with Leon Hammer to become a tutor in the system. Scott Tower , with Sybill Huessen, had begun to teach in Europe so I studied with them and this greatly enhanced my ability to consistently palpate the pulse and get quality information that I could be confident about. WHAT CAN THE PULSE SHOW ? Basically we’re feeling the blood flow through the radial artery, a muscular tube with fluid being pumped through it that therefore takes a wave form (similar to a sine wave). Many things moderate the shape and texture of the wave (e.g. in bioscience terms if there’s more cholesterol or fat in the blood, the feel of the flow becomes thicker or more viscous) and we can classify those shapes and textures and interpret them according to the accumulated experience of clinicians through many years. In that system the pulses on both wrists are felt simultaneously to make a comparison between the two sides but also to find the general quality at different depths. Then three separate positions are felt at different depths on each wrist in turn. In this way we can learn something about the different ‘functional’ systems of the body like the respiratory system, circulatory system, digestive system etc. Not only that, we can sometimes get info about the physical state of organs. Recently I was able to study with another westerner who learned chinese medicine in China, even to doctorate level, and was privileged to study with a lineage teacher from the Shang Han Lun tradition. Arnaud Versluys carries on a lineage teaching based on the great theory classic Huang Di Nei Jing, and more significantly here the development of that theory into a practical workshop manual of herbal prescribing, the Shang Han Lun. Reading the pulse in this system is fairly consistent with that outlined earlier, but with significant difference also. Shang Han Lun based pulse diagnosis looks at the most outstanding or significant aspect of the pulse picture as a statement by the body that this is where it’s healing process is bogged down right now. The other aspects of the pulses show how the rest of the system is affected but acknowledges that the picture may well change once the current problem has been dealt with. This is a far more manageable system to me; to do things one step at a time.
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