Author: Leon Hammer, MD
Abstract
Knowledge of Chinese pulse diagnosis has diminished steadily during the past century.
Consequently its capacity to perceive the earliest stages of patterns of disharmony and the process of disease is sharply curtailed. Increasingly Chinese medicine has lost the ability to serve its highest purposes including the power to prevent illness. The time and patience necessary to master Chinese pulse diagnosis is not synchronous with civilizations which encourage short term vision and investment of all human attributes. The material which follows and the book upon which it is based is an attempt to revive the teaching that has been passed on to me by a master of pulse diagnosis, Dr. John Shen. This work represents the integration of hundreds of pages of notes over twenty-four years into a coherent conceptual system and a growing method of teaching small groups.
This introduction is intended to reawaken an awareness of the importance of Chinese pulse diagnosis to Chinese medicine and possibly to the future of health care. This art-science has been increasingly neglected wherever Chinese medicine has appeared in our time, as revealed by my experience during the past twenty years in all parts of the world including and especially mainland China.
