A dozen or more eager men and women suddenly surge into the tiny room. From her central position at a small table, the practitioner looks up for a moment, pausing from her meditative task of reading a young girl’s right-side pulse. She politely but firmly asks the anxious patients to wait their turns in the hallway. The next moment, as the stampede reverses and leaks back out the door, the practitioner relinquishes the patient’s wrist, sits back in her chair, and begins to recite a rather lengthy list of herbs for the prescription. The graduate students beside the elder practitioner take blitzkreig dictation and hand the list to the patient to fill at the pharmacy downstairs. As the girl–hopefully clasping a formula for her severe recurrent nausea–stands to leave, an old factory worker with a worn expression and a relentless hand tremor seamlessly takes her place in the examination chair. For the thirty-fourth time today, the gentle and tireless practitioner begins her careful but succinct examination which will culminate minutes later in composing an exquisite herbal prescription.

To a great extent, this vignette captures the essence of Chinese medicine as experienced by Chinese mainlanders. There is, admittedly, a great deal more to a Chinese hospital of traditional medicine–ranging from MRI’s to acupuncture for post-stroke sequelae–but the earnest work of the outpatient herbal medicine department is the heart and soul of every TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) institution. Although the world-renowned art of acupuncture is a vital branch of traditional medical practice in TCM hospitals and clinics, herbal formulas are the unequivocal mainstay of TCM practice in mainland China.  The practice of internal medicine in Traditional Chinese Medicine is, by definition, the work of writing herbal prescriptions.