A Country Doctor Writes about the merits of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on 9/30/16. The author believes the value of TCM lies in "a certain enlightenment and pragmatism" and that the Chinese approach puts responsibility on the individual, rather than rely on the pharmacological effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicines.

In the last hundred years, our culture, with its tremendous scientific and technological advances, embraced the notion that our diseases come from invading bacteria, random gene mutations and other causes completely beyond our control. The promise of modern medicine has been that we can understand and counteract these forces through science, with more and more counteractive interventions. But as our treatments get more and more powerful, we have seen many of them cause ripple effects that cause other types of discomfort or disease. Now, we are instead seeing serious research into the relationships between illness and our psychological state, our harmony with our own gut bacteria, our low level exposure to dust and dirt we thought were harmful, our dietary choices and our physical activity level. We are beginning to see ourselves as no longer the hapless victims of outside forces, but products of our own day to day living choices.