Tongue Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine

by Giovanni Maciocia

Examination of the tongue, like the pulse, is one of the principal diagnostic methods in traditional Chinese medicine. This book is a thorough, clinically oriented exposition of tongue diagnosis by one of the most respected teachers and practitioners of Chinese medicine in the West. Each of the major aspects of the tongue – body color, shape and coating – and its relationship to the diagnostic process is systematically described. The book also traces the historical development of tongue diagnosis and its role in the evolution of traditional Chinese medical theory and practice. Featured in this new third edition are 175 color plates selected from the author’s practice which vividly illustrate many of the types of tongues that are commonly found in the Western clinic. Accompanying many of the plates are dozens of case histories which illustrate the application of the principles of tongue diagnosis in actual practice. Other aspects of tongue diagnosis described in this third edition include the integration of tongue and pulse diagnosis; the use of the tongue in diagnosing emotional problems; tongue diagnosis and herbal therapy; using the tongue for prognosis; and special considerations regarding tongue diagnosis in children. Appendices provide a summary of traditional principles governing identification of disease patterns (six stages, four levels, three burners) and their relationship to tongue characteristics. A glossary of technical terms, bibliography and detailed index are also included.

Genres: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Medicine, Health

232 pages, Hardcover

Published August 30, 2021

Reviews

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third of three books on Chinese tongue analysis I will review. I really tergiversated between two stars or three because this book was a source of frustration for so very long. It was the first tongue book I bought in school. Subsequently, for years the art of tongue diagnosis was beyond me because I learned practically nothing from it. It is poorly organized, there is too much text, and the words are so tightly mushed together on a page there is no air to be had there. (It was an Italian employer who once told me that words needed to be aerated on a page in order to be fully absorbable. Oh, the irony.)

The plates are dark, some of them slightly blurry, and in only about two-thirds of them can you actually see what the author indicates is the condition. Worse, and this is my biggest criticism of this book, the photo plates are all lumped into the middle of the book rather than inserted into the relevant chapter. At the end of each chapter there are excellent and useful tables that are limited to the chapter subjects. Unfortunately there is no index of the tables, so you have to mark them yourself (which is not really a problem, but an annoyance.) Also, and this is simply stupidity: some of the tables are carried over between several pages, which makes using them as a simple visual reference a step more complicated. The font is small and typically Maciocia, nothing is said simply or in a straightforward manner. The man's mind is Baroque and his writing reflects it. In the European (and Italian) medical tradition it is convention to opine largely in an essay fashion. The fact that Maciocia does it is interesting to a student of Chinese medicine who has a cook and a housekeeper to do the shopping and the washing up and other such mundanities. I do not. If you are lucky enough to have one or both then you will have ample time to linger over such excurses as this:

A blue tongue color during pregnancy may indicate the imminent danger of miscarriage. This was noted as far back as the 7th century by Chao Yuan-Fang in Discussion of the Origin and Symptoms of Disease. Chao observed that a blue tongue color and red face in a pregnant woman indicate the imminent death of the fetus and survival of the mother, while a red tongue color and a blue face indicate the death of the mother and survival of the baby.

We all know we'll never see a woman like this in our practice. Those women are on bed rest at the local hospital hooked up to machines. Their doctors are the type to call the State Medical Board on us if we so much as look in their pregnant direction.

This is a book for people who have been in practice a few years, are confident of their diagnostic abilities and have a bit of free time in the evenings for pleasant TCM reading. One thing Maciocia does not weigh the readers down with are point prescriptions.

What Maciocia does excellently well though--and this really sets him apart from his Chinese peers--is he will offer guesses at how a person arrived at such a tongue, and occasionally he will prognose what an untreated tongue will turn into. This visiting the past and the future in what could be viewed as a prognosticating time machine is wholly Occidental in nature. Asians practicing the medicine are inviolably stuck in the here and now.

[Elefteria Mantzorou · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is simply unthinkable to study Chinese medicine and not own this book. It is the ultimate guide for tongue diagnosis. Well written and presented.