Traditional Chinese medicine is a rich treasure house created by ancient Chinese people in their long history of struggling against disease. Chinese medicine is a complete medical system that has diagnosed, treated, and prevented illness for over 2,000 years. While it can remedy ailments and alter states of mind, Chinese medicine can also enhance recuperative power, immunity, and the capacity for pleasure, work, and creativity. It has made outstanding achievements over its long history and continues to make effects nowadays. Traditional Chinese medicine has now become a necessity of the foreigners who come to China.

The theory of traditional Chinese medicine is deeply influenced by the thought of Taoism. Traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology incorporates the Yin (negative) and Yang (positive) theory and the theory of the five elements, namely, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Apart from the theory, the physiological and pathological branches of traditional Chinese medicine pay more attention on the internal organs, main and collateral "channels", "vital energy" (qi) and blood. The treatment of traditional Chinese medicine is described as the "Four Methods of Diagnosis"-observing the overall way the patient looks, listening to the voice and observing any odor, asking questions, and feeling the patient's pulse.

Traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology embodies a great many valuable ideas and views, which have been proved through practice. Different from western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine takes every aspect of the patient into consideration in order to form a unified idea of it under the theories of Yin and Yang and the five elements before deciding on its treatment.

The famous therapies of traditional Chinese medicine are the acupuncture and moxibustion, which involve the study of "channels" and "points" on the human body, and the methods of treatment by massage, and "Qigong" (Breathing Exercises).

There are also many medicine literatures in China, which record the explanation and development of traditional Chinese medicine. According to an incomplete count, there are more or less 8,000 pieces of such kind of works. Of them, the most famous ones are: the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine (Huangdineijing), On Typhoid and Other Diseases (Shanghanzabinglun) and the Herbal Canon of Shen Long (Shenlongbencaogang), and so on.