Pulse diagnosis mài zhěn · 脉诊

Three positions on each wrist are felt at three depths, giving twenty-eight classical pulse qualities — floating, deep, slippery, wiry and so on.

It is the most skill-dependent part of the tradition, and studies of agreement between practitioners have generally found lower consistency than the classical literature implies. Modern medicine reads the pulse for rate and rhythm; the TCM reading is a different, interpretive exercise.