Recently, the Chinese Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine published a "Society Standard" called "Self-test Table for Classification and Judgment of Traditional Chinese Medicine Constitution" on the basis of "Research on Constitution of Traditional Chinese Medicine" published by Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (see Tian's original book "Interpreting Nine Constitutions of China People", the first edition of China Traditional Chinese Medicine Press in May 2009). The author thinks that the table is unscientific, and it is briefly discussed as follows.

The "nine constitutions" mentioned in this table mainly change the seven common syndromes of traditional Chinese medicine into "China people's constitutions", and change TCM syndrome differentiation into constitution classification, resulting in academic confusion.

1. Constitution and syndrome have different connotations and cannot be consistent; Constitution mainly reflects the healthy spirit and relatively stable internal functional structure of the body, and most people have normal constitutions; Syndrome is an overall understanding of the rise and fall of good and evil, the inside and outside of the body, the etiology and pathogenesis, and the relationship between man and nature. If the common syndrome is called constitution, it will lead to the wrong conclusion that "most people's constitutions are off track".

2. Identification is different from classification, and TCM syndrome differentiation focuses on identification rather than syndrome classification. Just as people can be divided into men and women, good or bad, tall or short, fat or thin, it cannot be said that people can be divided into eight categories: male, female, good, bad, tall, short, fat or thin. It is a low-level mistake to classify the eight principles of syndrome differentiation into eight categories of China people's physique.

Three. "Nine Constitutions" belong to different levels (such as yang deficiency and phlegm dampness) and are not exclusive; The classification of "nine constitutions" is not based on the same standard, so it should not be classified side by side.

Four. The "Nine Constitutions" cross each other, but they cannot exhaust all the constitutions of China people (such as those without scars). From the taxonomic point of view, this "China people's physique classification" is untenable.

5. Chinese medicine believes that symptoms should be divided into primary and secondary symptoms, while the Self-Test Table for Classification and Judgment of TCM Constitution does not distinguish between primary and secondary symptoms and signs, with a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 5 points, which completely becomes a simple mathematical game. For example, always (very) "subcutaneous hemorrhage" has the same meaning as "forgetfulness" and "dark circles", which may mislead patients with blood diseases to regard "serious illness" as "physical problem" of blood stasis. Sick and not sick people are all related to life, so we can't just fool around.