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Old Chart Shows Excellent Skills of Tibetan Medicine
A chart, which was drawn several hundred years ago by Tibetan doctors and depicts the course of fetation, aroused great interest among experts attending an international symposium on Tibetan medicine in this capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China.
Zhamdui, president of the Tibetan Hospital here, said that the chart is one of the 80 colored hanging charts drawn by ancient Tibetan doctors to explain the Four Medical Classics, known as an encyclopedia of ancient Tibetan medicine.
Doctor Bhagwan Dash from India said, "It is a rare thing in the world's history of medicine that charts to explain the secrets of Tibetan medicine were drawn as early as in the 12th century."
Ancient Tibetan doctors began to use congealed butter to cure traumas and obtained rich knowledge through clinical experience on preventing and treating diseases more than 2,000 years ago.
Based on these, Yuto Yondan Gonbo, an eighth-century Tibetan doctor, wrote the Four Medical Classics.
The four-part classic systematically discusses the basic theory of Tibetan medicine, the structure of the human body, physiological functions, causes of diseases and pathology, diagnosis and treatment and medicines, the effects of daily life on people's health, and medical ethics.
From the 12th century to the 17th century, Tibetan doctors drew a total of 80 colored charts which explain the Four Medical Classics. With the help of these charts, Tibetan medicine was widely spread in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu provinces.
According to 36 of the 80 charts and a batch of surgical tools collected in the regional museum of history, Tibetan doctors could treat knife wounds, burns and fractures hundreds of years ago. Tibetan doctors used golden needles to perform eye operations, before modern surgical techniques became available.
Zhamdui said that some of the Tibetan medical skills were used until the 1950s.
The three-day symposium closed Monday.
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