A pulse wave detector for detecting a pulse wave and a pulsimeter using the detector, capable of providing a pulse wave signal having noise components removed appropriately from a pulse waveform and determining the number of pulses with high accuracy on the basis of the pulse wave signal. The pulse wave signal and the pulse rate are delivered in the following way. A pulse wave signal from a pulse wave detection sensor unit (30) is temporarily stored in a buffer (503). When impulse noise detection means (505) detects an impulse noise in the pulse wave signal on the buffer (503), the pass band of a first digital filter (506) describes a mountain shape with its center positioned at the frequency corresponding to the previous pulse rate, and the impulse noise in the pulse wave signal outputted from the buffer (503) is reduced. After the overall noises and the body movement components in the pulse signal are reduced by second and third digital filters (507 and 508), a frequency analysis portion (509) executes frequency analysis and the number of pulses is calculated from this analysis result.