mài gū
Also rendered: the solitary pulse (Literal; keeps 孤 as alone) · the orphaned pulse (Emotional; over-reads 孤) · the pulse without stomach qi (Clinical expansion, correct in sense)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
A pulse that has lost what it should have behind it — the stomach qi that makes a pulse gentle and deliberate. The chapter reads it in one word: 脉孤爲消氣, a solitary pulse means the qi is being consumed. It belongs to the same family as chapter 7’s 真藏脈, the true storing pulse that appears when the stomach qi is gone, and as 懸絶 in the same chapter — the pulse that has been cut loose from everything that fed it.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| Common English | the solitary pulse | Standard, and the most faithful to 孤. |
| This site | the solitary pulse | 孤 is a child without a father — alone in a way that is defined by what is missing rather than by the thing itself. That is exactly what the chapter means: the pulse is still there, it has simply lost the stomach qi that should be carrying it. Orphaned would make it an object of pity; solitary makes it a clinical sign. |
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