 |
Asian Medicine
Tibet
Introduction
The region inhabited by the Tibetan-speaking peoples has historically existed in a number of political formations. While these have been largely subsumed within the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China (following the communist take-over of the region in 1950), ethnically Tibetan communities also form substantial minorities in Chinese provinces such as Sichuan and Qinghai, throughout Nepal and in Indian Himalayan regions such as Ladakh, Kumaon, Sikkim and Arunchal Pradesh. Thus, in speaking of "Tibetan medicine", we refer to the medical systems and strategies of the ethnic Tibetan communities regardless of geogaphical location.
Historically, Tibetan medicine has drawn on both indigenous and foreign elements, including not only those of neighbouring regions, but also of Greek medicine. It should therefore, be seen not as a static system, but as a dynamicly evolving process. A significant part of that process has been the encounter with Western medical systems, in particular, biomedicine. We may date the modern encounter between Western and Tibetan systems as originating in the first half of the 18th century, when Capuchin missionaries resided in Lhasa and carried out medical consultations there.
The encounter with biomedicine, however, dates to the latter half of the 19th century, when Western travellers to ethnically Tibetan regions, and Tibetan travellers to regions already under Western influence, introduced theories and practices of biomedicine into the Tibetan cultural world. In the first half of the 20th century, this process was accelerated by the actions of the British colonial state in India, which stationed Medical Officers within the then autonomous Tibetan state.
Today, of course, Tibetan medicine is well-known in the West, and has become one of a number of Asian medical systems promoted in the West - and indeed on a world-wide basis. Both political and economic imperitives can be seen as factors contributing to the growing popularity of Tibetan medicine as an alternative to biomedicine.
At the Wellcome Trust Centre for the Study of the History of Medicine, Dr Alex McKay is researching the 19th and early 20th century encounter between Western biomedicine and the medical systems of the Tibetan ethnic communities, as well as those in they have influenced, such as those of the Bhutanese. This study examines the aims and activities of both private European travellers and official representatives of the colonial state.
|
|
