Introduction to Oriental Diagnosis
Oriental Diagnosis Diagnosis in Oriental medicine was not a method of classifying symptoms, but a way of seeing the past, present and even future of an individual’s health and life. For over five thousand years, healers of the Far East have used their understanding of humanity and our relationship with nature to develop a simple, practical and humane medicine to cure sickness and maintain good health. The basis of this medicine, and of all Oriental philosophy and culture, is the Unifying Principle, Yin and Yang, which teaches that all things are related according to the Law of complementary opposites. Oriental diagnosis is based on the view that the way we walk, our posture, the shape of our features, the sound of our voice — all our external expressions — are not separate from our internal state of health. Individuals represent the accumulated history of the condition of their parents, the environment they live in, and the food they eat. Diagnosis therefore becomes more than a technique for helping the sick: it is a means to understand ourselves, our lives, and our relationship to the universe.
