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 Diagnostic methods
In broad texts of Tibetan medicine, the medical diagnostic is based on three methods described in the Four Medical Treatise: “by observation, palpation and questioning, a complete knowledge of illnesses. With visual observation, eyes will be examined, as well as the tongue and the urine. This is a knowledge related to the visual domain. The information coming from the pulse by digital contact is a true analytic knowledge. The questioning about the causes of illness, its symptoms and alimentation is a knowledge related to the hearing domain. In particular, to identify each illness, it is necessary to learn the three methods without confusion, which are visual observation, palpation and questioning. With the eyes, the therapist observes everything related to visual domain, such as the aspect of illness, colours, secretions, stools, vomit, by particularly examining the tongue and the urine (the urinalysis can be carried out following several ways, from paying attention to the food taken before, to the behaviour, from when the observation takes place, to the quality of the container and to the transformation of the liquid). This identification is a knowledge related to the domain of visual organs. The digital contact is related to the domain of palpation and more particularly the tactile reaction of the sick and their temperature. It consists in developing an exchange of tactile pieces of information between the patients and the physicians, by taking the patients’ pulse on the lines of the wrist (this technique includes numerous aspects such as the exact moment and location, the pressure, and the analysis in question). As this examination based on the observation of the pulse is a research meant to determine the sort of illnesses and as there is no mistake in this judgement, it is a reliable knowledge. The questioning consists in asking questions about the cause of the illness of its symptoms, the dietary habits and the way of life, etc. Since the analysis depends on the answers, it is a knowledge based on listening, thus regarding the domain of hearing organ.
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