BY VARIOUS AUTHORS

INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED
BY HEINER FRUEHAUF

Traditional Chinese medicine incorporates several diagnostic systems of differentiation, such as the five organ approach, the six confirmation approach, and the triple warmer approach. These different diagnostic systems are frequently combined in clinical practice, but since they were conceived and favored by different schools of medical practitioners, they are often used completely independent from each other. The eight diagnostic parameters, also called the eight principal patterns in diagnosis or the eight rubrics, constitute the most fundamental set of diagnostic standards which all practitioners of Chinese medicine—independent of their preference for one system of diagnosis or another—use and must know.