Chinese/Japanese Pulse Image chart: Rope Untying pulse

Illustration of Rope Untying pulse (jiesuo mai) from Renyuan maiying guizhi tushuo (Pictorial Handbook of Pulse Images Based on the Person). This is a specialist text on pulse diagnosis attributed to the third-century master Shuhe, edited and revised by Shen Jifen in the Ming period (1368-1644). It discusses various pulse images and the medical conditions to which they relate, and contains 48 pulse image diagrams. This undated edition was engraved and published in Japan.

The text states: Rope Untying pulse is one of the Sixteen Weird Pulses (guai mai). It is also known as Sluggish Corpse (zhi shi) pulse. Its pulse image is arhythmic, without a fixed number of beats, like a rope being untied. It occurs once each sequence of exhalation and inhalation. It arrives sporadically and departs tardily, like the tendrils of a creeper. A patient having this pulse will die within three days. If the pulse is found at the kidney location of the cun (Inch) pulse sector of the wrist, death will ensue within one day.