Isn't Chinese medicine just a form of folk healing?
No, Classical Chinese medicine was developed by some of the best-educated and brightest minds of China’s history. Medical scholars have recorded their theories and clinical experiences from generation to generation in literally thousands of books. It is estimated that there are 30-40,000 surviving books on Chinese medicine written before the turn of the 20th century. Since then, countless more books and articles in professional journals have been published around the world. In China alone roughly 1000 clinical audit studies into the efficacy of acupuncture and Chinese medicine are published annually. Many of these studies involve thousands of patients. Many more studies are carried out into the basic pharmacology and clinical use of herbal medicines and into the physiological effects of acupuncture. China also has a folk medicine tradition practised by ordinary people without formal medical training but this has always been considered a relatively inferior form of treatment as it is much less advanced.
