In the West, auscultation is defined as a method of clinical exploration which consists of listening to noises coming from inside the body. For Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it also includes the analysis of the strength of the voice and body odor. It is particularly useful for respiratory disorders where the assessment of the type of cough and lung capacity is essential. For example, the cough can give us indications of Emptiness or Excess, depending on whether it is weak, strong or unpredictable; a dry cough reveals a Void of Yin from the Lung, while a fatty cough indicates the presence of phlegm in the Lung.

Auscultation, and in particular the assessment of voice type, is also useful in assessing the strength of Qi. A weak voice usually denotes a weak Qi. At the other extreme, a loud, hoarse voice, like incessant babbling, characterizes Excess and Heat. In general, the voice is a mirror of the imbalances of the Lung, but there is a type of voice for each of the Organs: a singing voice indicates an imbalance of the Spleen / Pancreas; whining, Lung; growling, Kidneys; laughing, from the Heart; and thunderous, of the Liver.

As in the case of Ms. Vachon’s digestion problems, the acupuncturist can supplement or corroborate the symptoms evoked by the patient by listening, using the stethoscope, to the sounds emitted by the internal organs. The abdominal percussion is added to the tools which allow this verification. Through this examination, the practitioner strikes the fingers of one of his hands, placed on the patient, using the other hand. The type of sound emanating from it reveals whether there is a problem with the underlying Organ.

Smell is hardly valued these days as an investigative tool; our modern disdain for natural odors, which leads us to hide them under creams and perfumes, is undoubtedly for something … A Chinese doctor may however ask you if your urine or stools are very odorous. In such a case, he will associate this sign with Heat or Humidity. Bad breath is also part of a picture of Heat, specific to the Stomach.

The Five Elements Theory associates each body odor with the imbalance of a particular Organ: the smell of putrefaction is related to the Kidneys, the rancid to the Liver, the burnt to the Heart, the sweet to the Spleen / Pancreas and the foul to the Lung. For Chinese medicine, a healthy body has no smell …

In Antiquity, taste was also involved in data collection, but practice has long rejected tasting the patient’s urine for reasons of asepsis which seem obvious to us today!