[Chinese medicine as vegetative systems biology. Part II: the structure of TCM diagnosis]

This section describes the main features of functional vegetative diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A complete diagnosis comprises four components: constitution, agent, orb, and guiding criterion. These are based on a stringent, almost mathematically precise theoretical matrix as shown by the Heidelberg Model of Chinese Medicine. Accordingly, the core concepts of Chinese medicine, yin, yang and the phases, can be made rationally accessible to Western doctors as technical terms of vegetative regulation.