Essentials of Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis and Treatment

Essentials of Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis and Treatment is a clinically oriented reader on TCM diagnosis and treatment, written by Luo Wu based on his own insights from studying TCM and his diagnostic and treatment experience. The book runs about 190 pages and is divided into three major parts. The first three chapters begin with basic TCM theory, discussing the yin-yang and five-element doctrines, the essence of Shanghan pattern identification, and the approach to distinguishing cold, heat, deficiency, and excess, helping readers first establish a stable framework for pattern identification and understand the basic logic of TCM diagnosis: "first distinguish yin and yang, then differentiate exterior and interior, deficiency and excess." The middle twenty-five chapters form the main body of the book, discussing the diagnosis and treatment experience of difficult and complicated diseases in internal medicine, pediatrics, and gynecology by category. Each chapter mostly unfolds through etiology and pathogenesis, pattern differentiation and typing, and treatment methods and formulas, connecting classical theory with specific diseases so that abstract pattern identification methods become operational. At the end of the book are 70 typical case records, documenting patients' symptoms, pattern identification judgments, prescriptions and medications, and outcomes, focusing on presenting the author's clinical insights and embodying the mutual verification of theory and practice. Overall, the book's language is relatively concise, emphasizing mnemonic-style summaries of key points and flexible modification of formulas. The author states that it is especially suitable as a reference for TCM enthusiasts who have just finished formal training and for grassroots medical workers; the tested formulas included can also provide reference for treating common diseases in rural areas. General readers can also use it to understand the basic landscape of inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation, and the four examinations and eight principles.