Chinese/Japanese Pulse Image chart: Darting Shrimp pulse

Illustration of Darting Shrimp pulse (xiayou 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: Darting Shrimp pulse is one of the Sixteen Weird Pulses (guai mai). It is also known as Disintegrating Corpse pulse (san shi mai). The pulse image of Darting Shrimp pulse is like a shrimp sporting in the water: it seems to leap, then return, with rapid jerky movements. The three sectors of the wrist pulse - cun (Inch), guan (Pass) and chi (Foot) can all be felt moving together once with each breath and throbbing against the fingers.

A patient with this pulse will die within three days, except when the pulse is felt in the kidney location of a patient suffering from cold damage, in which case death will ensue in one day.