system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Does Chinese Herbal Medicine work?

Coming from a family that believe in Chinese herbal medicine, I've been to the Chinese doctor plenty of times. They take a look at you, measure your pulse from your wrist with 2 fingers and just blank out for a few minutes. Then they list out a whole list of problems and prescribe herbs where you boil and drink (I call it Liquid Tar).

My family believes in these practices as it has been practice over a long period of time but there doesn't seem to be a lot of research involved. I've asked my regular family doctor about this practice and he didn't have much to comment on it. 

So does Chinese Herbal Medicine work or is it just a Placebo effect?

P.S. I drink the stuff but I don't know if I get better because of it or it's just my body recovering naturally.
gpt
Technically, we have to say "it depends", as all actual FDA-approved medicine was once herbal medicine that was studied for active ingredients, and we now know exactly what to extract that produces desired results. 

Eg; Your grandma's secret poppyseed bread may always remove pain because it's loaded with "milk of the poppy", aka Opium.  Or that jar of mold she spreads on a cracker to cure your food poisoning is incindentally a raw version of penicillin.  

More than likely though, it's just placebo, or at least giving you vitamins and nutrients you haven't been eating because you hate your grandmother and don't eat your vegetables like a good boy.