ABSTRACT
Pulse diagnosis has been taking an important part, together with the other diagnostic techniques, for determination of symptoms and treatment of patients with acupuncture. However, the traditional expression of pulse is complicated and subjective, so that the understanding of pulse diagnosis in termes of modern medicine is almost impossible. We tried to objectify the expression of pulse wave.<br>The pulse wave recorded from the six positions on radial artery according to the method described in Chinese Medicine through a force transducer. The recordings were processed for Fourier analysis utilizing a computer system. Characteristics of the pulse wave can be expressed quantitatively as a form of power spectrum of its components. The preliminary results of this study was reported at the 31th annual meeting of the Japan Society of Acupuncture. This time, we report the analysis on the basic pulse waves which have been recognized as negative-positive and imaginaryreal pulses.<br>Method<br>The subjects were normal volunteers of 36 males and 17. females. A force tranducer (Nihon Kohden TF-11S) Equipped with 0.52cm<sup>2</sup> of sensitive area was placed on the radial artery under the pressure ranging from 20 to 550gr. The pulse wave thus recorded was led into the electronic computer (HITAC-20) to obtain the power spectrum of the frequencies.<br>Results<br>It was found that characteristics of the six kinds of pulse waves, i. e., floating-sunken, smooth-leap and slow-fast types, can be represented quantitatively in terms of frequency histogram. Further, a possibility to express so called "complex pulse" in Chinese Medicine by this method is suggested.
ABSTRACT
Pulse diagnosis is one of the most important diagnostic method in Chinese medicine, however, the expression of this diagnostic technique is subjective and cannot be in this form compared with modern medicine. Many attempts to describe the pulse conditions objectively have been made, however, there has been little success.<br>Any wave can be described by the frequency distribution of the energy, according to Fourier. Using this method, we tried to objectify the pulse wave. For the recording of the pulse, a pick-up (Nihon Kohden TF-11S) was fixed in a place at the radial artery and pressure applied using a micromanipulator. The output was put into a data recorder through an amplifier and monitored by an oscillograph. Data was then processed using computer (HITAC-20) and power spectrums were displayed.<br>In the above described method, the minimum and maximum force which should be applied to detect the pulse wave varied from person to person. The range was from 10-50g and 400-600g for minimum and maximum, respectively. This can be considered as individual variations of so called “floating and sunken” pulses. The best shape of pulse waves were obtained with 100-300g of pressure.<br>A typical power spectrum of pulse wave was composed of standard sine curve (approximately 1Hz, basic wave) and its harmonics. Sharply peaked waves occured when the basic component was great and oppositely, the flatter waves contained abundant of harmonics. The ratio of the basic wave to its harmonics represents the characteristics of wave pattern, i. e., objective description of pulse conditions can be made.<br>We will then, investigate the correspondence of the recordings to the expressions in the Chinese medicine, influences of acupuncture, etc.