Author: Tibet Information Network

Publisher: Virago Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13:

This book examines the social, political, and economic issues that are impacting the use, availability and production of Tibetan medicine, as well as the cultural identity associated with Tibetan medicine in contemporary Tibet. It fosters its future prospects as a science, healing art, and an affordable and available component of the health care systems at work in Tibet After a brief general introduction into Tibetan medical tradition, the book sketches its history, with particular reference to the founding of medical institutions in historical Tibet, and how these institutions have changed since the 1950s. It then explores Tibetan medical education in its modern context, with particular attention to the formation of new kinds of schools and training programmes for Tibetan medicine, many of them funded by foreign NGOs. A further focus of the book is on the production and commercialisation of Tibetan medicines. Although the particular story of Tibetan medicine in contemporary Tibet, and in the People's Republic of China (PRC), is less grim than other aspects of Tibet's recent political and cultural history, it is a tale of contradiction, dramatic change and an uncertain future.