人身의 形象醫學的 觀察方法에 關한 硏究

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The six billion people living on the earth all have different appearances, body shapes, personalities, skin colours and living styles. However, one can find both universality and peculiarity amongst the people. The medicine has grouped such universalities and peculiarities, and has used such grouping as a means of recognising each individual. The diagnosis based on the appearance of patients (i.e., xingxiang) stems from Huangdineijing, one of the oldest medical books in Chinese medicine. Also Dongyibaojian, the root of Chinese medicine of Korea, stresses the importance of the observation of the appearance of patients.
We often experience that application of the same treatment has different results in its effectiveness depending on the patients. The author believes that such difference refers to the difference in xingxiang.
Different physical constitution entails different diseases. Furthermore, internal diseases always cause the changes in the external features of patients. Accordingly, diseases can be detected from the observation of the external features of patients including their physical shape, behaviour and skin colours.
The author believes that it is very important to observe xingxiang for the purpose of seeking the pathology and prescription based on the examination of the patients shape, colour, pulse and symptoms as a whole. This is because different xingxiang reflects different nature of the internal body, and Chinese medicine has traditionally considered it as an important means of diagnosis to examine the external shape and colours of the patients.
The author has undertaken the above study based on the belief that clinical theories can be more closely reflected in the actual treatment by making reference to xingxiang. The above study centres around the theories as described in Huangdineijing and reference was also made to other literature of authority.