The mass splittings within the SU(2) multiplets of pseudoscalar mesons
(pi, K, D, B) are used as a laboratory to determine the mass differen
ce between d and u quarks (current), through the simplest (two-point)
quark-loop diagrams for the self-energies of the corresponding hadrons
, together with the associated quark-condensate diagrams within the lo
ops. The second-order e.m. correction is also calculated with a photon
line joining the two opposite quark lines in the self-energy loop. Th
e basic ingredient is a hadron-quark-vertex function generated from a
vector-exchange-like (chirally invariant) four-fermion Lagrangian (wit
h current quarks) under dynamical symmetry breaking (D chi SB), precal
ibrated to spectroscopy and other important low-energy amplitudes. The
results which are expressed as proportional to the u-d mass differenc
e delta(c), but are otherwise free from any adjustable parameters, rep
roduce in a rather accurate way all the SU(2) mass differences (from k
aon to bottom) with delta(c) = 4.0 MeV, when all the three self-energy
diagrams are included. The pion receives only e.m. contributions with
a value 5.24 MeV.