Oh a lot of it is quite good but saying it that way makes it difficult to answer further because there are a lot of methods to Chinese Medicine. Just like there is in Western Medicine or medicine in the USA. Which one?
Their practices have been around for centuries compared to ours. They work.
Since I don't take western medicine i Swear by Chinese Herbs. Western medicine does not treat the root cause it treats the symptoms and the side effects will kill you. Am Taking Chinese herbs on a daily basis and have had Accupuncture twice.
The other nice part about Chinese herbs, Baba as with all herbs, they dwindle in power when you overdo them. That is why marijuana is a good drug to get off other bad meds that can cause addiction. It allows for freedom of pain and it does not allow for someone to overdo it. The more you use, the less effect it has. Hard to overdose.
Tobacco is not really an herb, is it? Plus they put additives in the plant to make it addictive.
You can NOT get addicted to Jimson Weed unless you are a total psychopath. And opium is not an herb. It is an opiate and a narcotic. That is a different category. Belladonna also can be dangerous, but I don't know if you can get addicted. Maybe yes. Don't know for sure. So these things can kill you by taking too much, but they don't make you higher and higher as a rule. They taper off.
Jimson weed and belladonna contain atropine and scopolamine and are used medicinally but can be very dangerous. Opium poppy is the herb that morphine and codeine are extracted from. Herbs can be narcotics too. Tobacco is a plant, and in it's raw form can be dangerous. An herb is just any plant that is ingested for flavoring,intoxicating, or medicating.
Tobacco, jimson weed,belledonna, opium are all herbs and used in some herbal medicine practices. Herbs can be addicting and can be easily overdosed. Herbs make and contain chemicals, everything is made of chemicals.
Taking two implausible examples of a study that includes literally thousands of cures by physicians that practice their art for an entire lifetime, doesn't prove anything at all. There are bad asprin formulas over here too. That does not mean that asprins do not cure headeaches.
You have to have the right medicine with the right healer for the right problem. And you have to know what you are talking about before you knock it, you know?
I'm pretty sure that Physicians, I mean trained physicians is not what the question had in mind. At the same time, and as you use it as your argument, just because millions of people swear by the powers of a root rubbed twice on their forehead because it's prescribed by a physician performing it's art, doesn't make it valid. The same amount of people swear by the powers of tiger penis soup. And I totally agree with your last sentence, maybe we do need to know what we're talking about.
Baba 