The ancient classic work Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon has abundant expositions about the relationship between the acupuncture needle manipulation and pulse diagnosis.However

the relevant imparting and inheritance situations are relatively weaker nowadays probably due to the rapid development of modern diagnosis-therapeutic techniques and some faults or careless omission in understanding classical medical works.Qi

a core concept of the abundant expositions in Inner Canon

has seldom been thoroughly interpreted about its connotations.For this reason

in the present paper

the authors make a careful explanation about the connotations of Qi in Inner Canonfrom 1)the concept of Qikou(a superficial window of the body reflecting the functional state of internal organs)

2)pulse conditions

3)its relationship with meridian-collateral diagnosis

and 4)the link between acupuncture needle stimulation and pulse diagnosis based on the scriptures and words description in combination with many scholars' doctrines

trying to explore its profound significance.In addition

the authors also expound its association with the effectiveness of distant treatment of acupuncture and the characteristics in relation to ancient medical scholars' thoughts.