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Frgster t1_j1ryqmw wrote

Reply to comment by enderwillsaveyou in Beijing to distribute Pfizer antiviral drug as Covid wave strains health system by web_explorer

TRADITIONAL Chinese Medicine. Not Chinese Medicine. Very big difference. One is science based the other is superstition.

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enderwillsaveyou t1_j1rzphz wrote

Oops. My fault then, I wasn't aware there was a difference between the two descriptions of the medicine.

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Frgster t1_j1ssn1s wrote

There isn't. Tradional medicine is not scientifically proven in any way. The distinction should be medicine and and superstitious/unproven treatments.

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Shuber-Fuber t1_j1v45qu wrote

I won't go that negative. Traditional medicine is still based on the limited scientific knowledge of the time. They observed that certain herbs have certain effects, so they crafted a theory on how it works, and it seems to hold true so they keep using it.

The difference is that now we have better tools/methods to determine what works.

With specific for TCM, the herbal medicine part was based on a book by the author trying and documenting its various effects, so in essence it's a very primitive form for scientific process. Can't exactly blame him for not knowing to account for placebo effects, controls, etc.

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kimchifreeze t1_j1tcjjw wrote

If you go to a TCM place, you'll see tons and tons of shelves of dried herbs and parts of animals. It's not like a pharmacy where you get pills.

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khalixz t1_j1s57tl wrote

Calling TCM superstition is weird. Did china have imaginary doctors through out history or something?

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JeSuisOmbre t1_j1sc46k wrote

TCM is superstition in the same way the four humors theory that medieval doctors worked with was also superstition.

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rsta223 t1_j1sq6jy wrote

Everywhere had superstitious and totally useless (and often actively harmful) doctors until very recently, with the advent of scientific medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine is just as useless as the four humours or the miasma theory of disease.

China is just holding on to theirs a bit longer.

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khalixz t1_j1svaqq wrote

there may be people who don't know what they're doing with traditional chinese medicine, but I'd wager the royal families in history would have executed all the imperial doctors if no one could do anything to heal them?

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Larnak1 t1_j1synfr wrote

I wouldn't be surprising at all if some doctors in ancient China got executed for reasons like that.

But it's essentially the same as in Western medieval ages. There were certain things doctor's knew how to do, and they actually managed to help - those are the things that got developed further into modern medicine. And then there was a bunch of stuff that people just made up due to lack of scientific standards. But nobody knew better, so they still did it, especially to noble families (as they could afford doctors). Think about blood-letting or cupping therapy.

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Dingo-Eating-Baby t1_j1tnbwr wrote

Imperial doctors used to prescribe mercury, because they thought drinking it would make you immortal

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Frgster t1_j1ss9yo wrote

Why would it be weird? How would you describe it?

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khalixz t1_j1surst wrote

Not that i'm an expert or anything, but I guess I would compare western medicine and traditional chinese medicine in the sense that western medicine works directly to suppress/fix symptoms and let the body heal, while tcm tries to boost the vitality of the body and let it heal? I may be completely wrong but thats what I think.

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Larnak1 t1_j1szwlo wrote

Medicine, Western or not, needs to be evidence-based. Meaning that you need to be able to scientifically measure success of what you are doing. If you can't measure any success, it's superstition and pseudoscience.

The reason why any alternative medicine - traditional Chinese included - is "alternative" is that it's impossible to proof any positive effects beyond placebo. In other words, it's not working. It doesn't have any effect.

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NeedsSomeSnare t1_j1t9v88 wrote

Sorry to interject in your conversation. There is no such thing as "western medicine". It's just called "medicine" and comes from scientific research, not from "the west".

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Shuber-Fuber t1_j1v3c0r wrote

>while tcm tries to boost the vitality of the body and let it heal?

"Western" medicine also does that, it's just called eating healthy, exercising, and in some circumstances prescribing vitamins because the deficiencies cannot be corrected for some reason.

The difference is that western medicine needs proof that something is working. TCM could have stuff that works, the issue is that there's too much noise (a lot of things that don't work).

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