Herbs can also be very effective for shortening the course of acute infectious disease of viral and bacterial origin and minimizing long-term repercussions. This may become an increasingly important use of herbs in view of the widespread resistance of bacterial pathogens to antibiotics. Herbal medicine can rectify the conditions within a patient's body that provide the opportunity for the proliferation of disease causing entities. 

Many classical herbal formulas have displayed therapeutic effects for modern diseases, and herbal medicine remains an innovative discipline that has adapted to modern conditions. Herbal formulas continue to be created that provide remarkable therapeutic benefit to patients with autoimmune disorders, hypertension, high cholesterol, exposure to toxic chemical substances, diabetes, and hepatitis, among many other chronic conditions. 

A significant advantage of this medicine to the patient is that herbs can be taken on a daily basis, while daily acupuncture treatments are generally not feasible. Traditionally acupuncture physicians master both acupuncture and herbalism in order to effectively treat the greatest number of patients. Chinese herbal medicine is one of the oldest surviving traditions of herbalism, widely and vigorously practiced for millennia. The Chinese herbal tradition represents perhaps the richest resource available to us about the therapeutic use of herbal medicines. 

In Chinese herbal medicine, substances are combined in a "formula" which creates a synergistic effect so that doses of individual herbs are low and side effects are minimized. Within each single herb multiple chemical compounds are present and create a similar synergism. Currently there is a movement in Western pharmacology that emphasizes the combination of drugs in order to create a synergistic effect, yet replicating the intelligence innate in naturally occurring herbs will not be easy. It is important to employ natural substances as medicines as our modern lifestyle increasingly alienates us from natural environments, while the side effects of biomedical drugs can be devastating and even life-threatening. 

Classical formulas are elegant and well balanced, yet rarely do they exactly fit a patient. The curriculum at Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine includes the study of classical and modern formulas, and the principles of how to put together a formula for an individual patient. The process of precisely tailoring a treatment to an individual is one of the great strengths of Chinese medicine, largely missing from Western biomedicine.  

The administration of herbs is largely unregulated, yet the responsible use of herbs requires an accurate diagnosis. The emphasis on diagnosis at Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine and preparation for the Chinese herbal medicine exam yields practitioners who are able to apply the ancient wisdom of Chinese herbal medicine in our modern times.