Inquiry of diet and partiality includes the inquiry of thirst, drinking of water, intake of food and partiality. The doctors should pay attention to inquiry of thirst, quantity of drinking of water, preference for cold or hot drinks, appetite, and quantity of the intake of food, partiality and aversion of food, abnormal taste and odor in the mouth. Inquiry of diet can enable one to understand whether the disease is of heat or cold, or of asthenia or sthenia, whether the functions of the spleen, stomach, liver and the gallbladder are strong or weak, whether the body fluid is sufficient or insufficient and whether the distribution of the body fluid is normal or abnormal. Such information is very important in clinical diagnosis.

Thirst and drinking of water:
Thirst means the desire for water and drinking water means the quantity of water being drunk. Generally speaking, the patient with thirst likes to drink water and the patient without thirst does not want to drink water. But it is not always the case. In clinical diagnosis, doctors should try to inquire the characteristics of thirst and the accompanied symptoms. Whether there is thirst or not and whether the water drunk is more or less are the signs of the conditions of body fluid and its distribution.

No thirst but desire for drinking of water:
This condition indicates that the body fluid is not consumed, usually seen in cold syndrome, dampness syndrome or? syndrome without evident dryness and heat.

Thirst with desire to drink water: This condition is a sign of the consumption of body fluid, often seen in dryness syndrome, heat syndrome; also seen in diseases marked by non-consumption of body fluid, dysfunction in qi transformation and failure of body fluid to flow to the upper part of the body. Extreme thirst with preference for cold drinks accompanied by reddish complexion, sweating and surging and rapid pulse is usually caused by exuberance of internal heat and serious consumption of body fluid; thirst with much drinking of water, accompanied by profuse urination, polyphagia and frequent hunger and gradual emaciation, is consumptive disease usually caused by excretion of fluid from the lower resulting from failure of kidney to transform body fluid due to asthenia. Thirst with preference for hot drinks but without much drinking of water is usually due to internal retention of phlegmatic fluid, or asthenia of yangqi and failure of body fluid to flow to the upper part of the body;

Thirst without much drinking of water accompanied by dull fever, heaviness of body and head and oppression in the epigastrium is usually caused by internal stagnation of damp heat, failure of body fluid to transform qi and to flow to the upper part of the body; thirst without much drinking of water accompanied by worsened fever at night and crimson tongue is yingfen syndrome in seasonal febrile disease due to invasion of pathogenic factors into yingfen which steams ying yin to flow to the upper, leading to less thirst and less drinking of water; dry mouth with desire to gargle but not to drink water,? accompanied by purplish ecchymosis on the tongue, is usually caused by internal retention of blood stasis, failure of qi to transform body fluid and failure of? body fluid to flow to the upper.