Application of Thermal Science to Tongue Inspection in Traditional Chinese Medicine

【Abstract】 The study on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)by the technology and method of thermal science is a new cut in point in interdisciplinary science, and its purpose is to study the tongue inspection in TCM from the view of the bio heat transfer theory. In this paper human tongues were studied with the infrared thermal imaging technology. And the characteristic relationship between temperature distribution and age, tongue color as well as infrared thermal tongue image concerning the characteristic of viscera was analyzed by the experimental data,which confirms that the change in temperature distribution in different positions of the tongue is related to the diseases of different internal organs of the body. From a series of invasive experiments in animals, the blood perfusion rate was measured with the equipment of CBI 8000 Doppler Blood Flow Meter and MP 100 Physiologic Research System for the first time and the characteristic relationship curve between the temperature on the surface of the tongue and the blood perfusion rate was obtained. From the experiments the temperature on the surface of the tongue reflects objectively the tongue color which is influenced by the blood perfusion rate. This will help to develop some new cognition in the theory of TCM.更多还原