The four methods of diagnosis is a general term used by the doctors of the traditional Chinese medicine for the basic methods of diagnosing illnesses. It is a wonder that TCM doctors could cure countless patients without any assistant or apparatus but only through physical examination. The four diagnostic methods include: inspection, auscultation-olfacation, inquiry and palpatation refer to the four basic procedures used in diagnosing a disease, They are the presuppositions of correct differentiation and effective treatment in TCM.

Inspection:

Inspection
Inspection indicates that doctors directly watch the outward appearance to know a patient’s condition. As the exterior and interior corresponds immediately, when the inner organs run wrongly, it will be reflected through skin pallor, the tongue, facial sensory organs and some excrement.

Auscultation-olfaction:

Auscultation is to find the abnormal sound of speech, respiration and cough etc. By means of auditognosis (hearing). Olfaction is to know the smell of the patient’s body, the secretion and excreta by means of osphresis (smelling). It is a way for doctors to collect messages through hearing the sound and smelling the odor.

Interrogation:

Interrogation is to know the onset, development, treatment, present symptoms and other information of disease by questioning patient or the accompanying people for diagnosis.

Palpation:

Palpation
Palpation includes pulse examination and body pressing-touching. They are diagnostic methods that doctor uses his tactile sensation of fingers and palm to touch patient’s body to get diagnostic data. Pulse examination is to feel the pulse while body pressing-touching is to touch and press the different parts of patient’s body such as skin, hands and feet, chest and abdomen and so on.

When treating a disease, doctors of TCM usually find the patient’s condition through these four diagnostic methods: observation, auscultation-olfaction, interrogation and palpation. Through these four methods of diagnosis, the symptoms and physical signs of the illnesses manifested in various facets are diagnosed with a view to understanding the causes or nature of the illnesses as well as their connections with the internal organs, which provide a solid basis for the treatment of the illnesses.

Today, although western medicine has been adopted, traditional treatments are still playing an important role and have raised great attention and interest worldwide due to the amazing curative effects reported.

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