Scheid, a medical anthropologist and practitioner of Chinese medicine, offers a revealing and provocative study that accepts plurality as the intrinsic and nonreducible aspect of traditional medical practice in contemporary China. By interweaving traditional anthropological concepts with the threads of science and technology, social psychology, and Chinese philosophy, and by illustrating TCM's current implementation with qualitative and quantitative examples, he exposes the occassionally contradictory complexity of contemporary administration and practice in the People's Republic.

Drawing on case studies from his fieldwork in the PRC, he examines the traditional medicine of China from a variety of perspectives: as it is regulated and mandated by the People's government; as it is shaped and affected by consumption, utliization, and reproduction; as it is integrated and synthesized at the level of clinical practice; as it is defining practice in contemporary Chinese medicine by the emergence of methods of pattern differentiation and treatment determination; and as its plurality can be detected by examining the case of one young acupuncturist treating CVA.

In casting light on the plurality as process and transformation in Chinese medical practice, Scheid presents the reader with a perspective rarely seen in the West. Thus prepared, a Westerner can deliberate the future of Chinese medicine in a global context. By providing a view predicated on Chinese needs and interests, he gives Western clinicians the opportunity to understand the Chinese influences over TCM and their likely direction for the future.