ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on forms immanent in practice and on modes of deploying knowledge and techniques. The sizhen are methods of examining disease. The methods of examining disease in our fatherland's medicine are of four main types: looking, listening/ smelling, asking, and palpating, known for short as the four examinations. The four examinations are extremely important; they are a crucial component of Chinese medical diagnosis, providing an objective basis for clinical syndrome differentiation and disease treatment. The four examinations are heavily emphasized in textbooks and in clinic teaching. This is partly because the process by which diffuse signs is considered to be basic to medical perception and action. A reading of the four examinations section of any introductory Chinese medicine text impresses one with the range of phenomena admissible as symptoms in Chinese medicine. The task of the clinical encounter is the differentiation of a syndrome and the determination of a therapy.
