The 28 Pulse Qualities Reviewed

If only pulse diagnosis was so easy!!!!! It is possibly the most difficult of the skills an acupuncture practitioner needs to master and sadly it is all too easy to commit errors.

In China in earlier times going to see a medical practitioner was often referred to as ‘going to have my pulses felt.’ And yet whereas many practitioners place pulse diagnosis at the very heart of their diagnostic process, for others it plays a minor role compared to the nature of the symptoms.

The 28 qualities form the basis of pulse diagnosis. Accurate diagnosis gives the practitioner invaluable information about the nature of the patient’s qi and blood that is very hard to discover otherwise. This talk is designed to help practitioners and students clarify confusions between the pulse qualities and enhance their ability to identify the different qualities.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the different kinds of floating (fu) pulse and how to recognise relatively common, but easy to miss, qualities such as confined (fu), overflowing (hong) and leather (ge).