I am not trained in
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and having received a modern scientific education, I am skeptical about many aspects. However TCM is
very widely accepted in China, throughout China's zone of cultural influence in East/South East Asia, and wherever there is any significant population of Chinese people. In Australia, practitioners must be registered under the national registration and accreditation scheme with the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia, and meet the Board's Registration Standards, in order to practise legally. Regardless of the actual efficacy of TCM, its
cultural influence is immense. There is a widespread idea, for example, that drinking cold water is damaging to the stomach, which is tied to TCM ideas about heat and cold, though it might well have had a purely pragmatic basis when unboiled water was not safe to drink.
TCM is very old, long predating any scientific understanding of disease, and has many similarities with the ideas of the Ancient Greeks (which persisted in Europe until at least the 17th century), particularly the idea of bodily and emotional health being based on the "
humours". TCM also is heavily influenced by
Taoist ideas of balance between opposing forces, among which are included heat and cold, two of the "Six Pernicious Influences." The basic idea is that certain foods, medicines, and activities promote heat or cold, and that if a patient's symptoms suggest that they are suffering from an excess of either, diet or herbs will be suggested to exert a countervailing influence.