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Liu Y, Dao Z, Yang C, et al. Medicinal plants used by Tibetans in Shangri-la, Yunnan, China. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2009 May 5;5:15. PMID: 19416515.

Researchers at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China College of Life and Environment Sciences, and China University for Nationalities inventoried traditional medicinal plants used by Tibetans in the county of "Shangri-La" (formerly Zhongdian), Yunnan Province, Southwest China.

The authors note an impending loss of traditional Tibetan medical knowledge, and attribute it to the voluntary adoption of dominant Han ways by all but the most elderly Tibetans. Two ethnobotanical field surveys are undertaken, often hampered by lack of access to expert herbalist guides.

Still, work is accomplished. From the results section:

"Sixty-eight medicinal plant species in 64 genera of 40 families were recorded and collected. Among them, 23 species were found to have medicinal values that have not been recorded in any existing Tibetan literatures before, and 31 species were recorded to have traditional prescriptions. Moreover, the traditional preparations of each species and some folk medicinal knowledge were recorded and analyzed. These traditional prescriptions, preparations, new medicinal plants and folk medicinal knowledge and principles were discovered and summarized by local traditional Tibetan healers through times of treatment practices, and were passed down from generation to generation."

Medical applications included dysentery, gastropathy, cold/fever, and rheumatism/arthritis, among others.

In the conclusion, the authors note that the disappearance of Tibetan traditional medical knowledge "would be a great loss not only to the Tibetan cultural wealth but also to the great cultur[al] diversity of China." Choices made by Tibetans themselves, rather than government policies, are held to be the cause:

"…most traditional Tibetan healers were found to be almost 70 years old, and their descendants are scarcely willing to inherit this traditional profession and the precious traditional knowledge handed down. They prefer other jobs with more income instead. They believe that the traditional medicines are not so indispensable to their life nowadays and their reasons are given as follows: 1) the medical treatment of Han community is more advanced and has better condition than the traditional ones; 2) Tibetan became more and more dependent on the money-consuming substances outside their village, but traditional healers didn’t earn much."

A note in the methods section could shed some light on those observations. The field researchers elected to consult only with "official workers, traders and local healers who have to contact with different people very often," and only with those who speak Mandarin: "So we all speak mandarin and didn’t use any interpreters in communicating." I’m not an ethnobotanist, but that does not strike me as a great way to learn from indigenous herbalists in Tibet.

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger).This blog is not a source for medical advice.

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