Ummm, first off, you can't think "American" -- you have to think "Chinese medicine". The "force" or pressure that blood exerts in the blood vessels is what we call "blood pressure". This is NOT that.
The Chinese also are hugely interested in the speed and how evenly blood moves thru the body. The basic premise is that blood that doesn't move swiftly enough (sometimes it's too thick, sometimes it's encountering resistance or a problem/injury/organ malfunction -- there can be many reasons) or consistently enough thru an area or an organ is said to be 'sluggish'. As far as the Chinese are concerned "sluggish blood" isn't doing what it should do. Blood should carry oxygen and energy TO the cells and toxins and carbon-dioxide OUT of the cells.
So to their mind, if blood is moving thru an area too slowly or without the proper movement then that's an area that is a "set up" for problems. See the external manifestation or "thing" in Pirate's case is seizures. The Chinese aren't at all satisfied with that as a diagnosis -- they want to know WHY? What's setting the body up to malfunction? WHERE is the "chi" (qi) slowing down and not transmitting life force adequately.
They looked at his entire body. Dr. Xie mentioned that one part of the top of his head was "warmer than I would want it to be", that his groin/abdomen under his hips was "warmer than it should be", that the pulses (they don't just take the pulse at the jugular or wrist -- they literally feel pulse points all over the body and compare them to see where the blood is moving faster/slower, etc.)
They put that together with such stuff as "dry hair coat" (noting particular places where his coat is more dry than others), the color of his gums, the color of his tongue (and often different parts of the tongue -- the very first thing any doctor of oriental medicine - human or animal - will do is look at the tongue for any sort of a coating, change in color/texture on the surface/edges/middle, etc of the tongue) because different areas of the tongue are tied to different body systems.
Pirate got raced to the vet Friday morning because his gums were SO pale. Yet his tongue was nearly purple -- his hematacrit was great (49) so why is the blood flowing well to the tongue but NOT the gums? Again -- to Chinese medicine it's all indiciative of different things.
It's not necessarily that the 'hot' liver is making the blood slower -- it's likely more that 'hot' indicates inflammation (or maybe an organ that is overworked or unable to function properly -- among many other types of 'heat';) and maybe one of the things that's causing it TO be inflamed is the fact that the blood isn't moving thru it properly -- so that leads them to then look for indicators of toxins, masses, etc.
All of this got REALLY complicated and they even lost ME (not that I"m any expert but I've heard hundreds of exams like this over the past 10 years) because since this was 'training' he kept asking leading questions like "what if this were a puppy rather than a mature dog? what if this were a 12 year old dog? what if THIS had been warm instead of that?
In Pirate's situation the fact that the gums were pale led Dr. Xie to think that the gallbladder was somewhat involved -- which ultimately led to the particular decison of which herb to use.
These are NOT 'new' concepts -- in fact (and this isn't meant to be a religious comment, just a "time immemorial" comment) in the old Testament in Leviticus it says "The life of the flesh is in the blood" -- so even millenia before x-ray machines how the blood moved thru the body was known to be critical.
One of the basic 'concepts' in Chinese herbals is that there are blood "movers" and blood "nourishers" and then you also support the various areas having a problem.
Since 'heat' is a problem in the liver area, Dr. Xie wanted her to feed a protein souce that is known to be "cooling" to the body (to help draw out and reduce inflammation -- not 'cooling' like ice). So he suggested turkey, fish, rabbit or duck. NOT chicken (which tends to add heat, not reduce it). I find it really interesting that he suggested two things that are poultry and one he specifically wanted her to avoid was poultry!
It's really hard, Lori, to just answer a question like that because no one here really has a basic understanding of Chinese medicine. If you are at all interested, I'd suggest Chery Schwartz' book "Four Paws, Five Directions".
The other thing that I thot was REALLY interesting was the very FIRST thing they determined was Pirate's personality type (Chinese medicine says ANY being has a personality of some combination of the "Five Elements" -- which is sensible because one of the first things WE notice as owners/guardians is when a dog's personality 'changes'. But in other words, what might be a glaring "symptom" in one dog might be no big deal in another. But in that other dog it might manifest as something different. And, like with people someone with ... to use a more common vernacular .. say an "alpha" personality might be way more prone to run something like high blood pressure -- they look at the dog's personality as a clue to what might be going on.
So hopefully this has explained a bit but it isn't necessarily that a "hot liver is making the blood slower" but that both of those may be a clue to where the inner problem is coming from and what to treat to ultimately help control, in Pirate's case, what is triggering the seizures to worsen.
But, for example, "platelets" might simply translate to "spleen" or specific areas of blood production.
One of the HUGE things he stressed yesterday was that so often it isn't just treating a dog with herbs alone. Or with Western medicine alone -- but that by using the combination of Western & Eastern you often get the most radical, long-lasting results.