Not only in the realm of medical care, but also in the laboratory and in clinical re search, researchers are investigating traditional medicines in the hope of striking gold. Their ambition is to find more effective ways to deal with the many hard-to-treat illnesses which currently afflict human beings. The more optimistic among them predict that integration of TCM and Western medicine will become part of the mainstream of medical care in the 21st century.
除了醫療服務，無論在實驗室或臨床研究上，都有人汲汲於從中國的傳統醫藥裡挖寶，企圖為人類目前許多難解的疾病，尋求更有效的治療方式；樂觀人士預測，中醫將與西醫整合，成為未來二十一世紀的醫學主流﹘﹘「第三醫學」。