The concept of Chinese medicine was also created and promoted by Mao since they couldn’t afford much real medicine after the revolution. It simply didn’t exist as a unified thing before then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghan_Lun
https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E7%96%AB%E8%AE%BA
What's the reasoning behind this theory that Mao invented Chinese medicine, which has been in existence for more than a thousand years? Are you a fan of Mao, or are you mocking his inability to create modern medicine out of thin air? Or his manipulation of Chinese culture?
Chinese medicine gets people to drink urine. A Shaman spits alcohol on people. A witch doctor conjures spells. None can be considered effective until proven effective.
"Proven effective" means. 1) Follows the reliable method, results are published 2) The experiment can be verified and replicated by anyone anywhere anytime.
That is the difference between the scientific method (So called "western medicine") and scams.
Summarizing: A fungus can be medicine, when proven effective. The older you state Chinese medicine is, the worse for its cause. So much time to show proof of effectiveness, so little they can prove.
In extreme cases, this happens. And we also know that a lot of high impact cancer research results cannot be reproduced. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03691-0
And Chinese medicine for the most part is a discipline for nurturing human body through natural produces and elements for self healing. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
It does not have scientific methods.
The modern Chinese medicine is adopting scientific methods. https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/15/6/984/180255
Condescending argument are not wrong, they are just logically imprecise. And can easily provoke negative emotions to your readers.
You say “So little they can prove” but I’m saying they have proven a lot, and non-western medicine just becomes western by virtue of being adaquatelty studied. We may be agreeing more than you think.
“Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany” is an excellent book on the topic.