This chapter discusses the process of how classical Tibetan medical terms acquire new meanings, especially when practitioners of ‘Tibetan medicine’ in both the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Indian exile¹ are exposed to ideas about biomedicine. The ethnographic examples presented are based on doctoral fieldwork (2004-2006) carried out among Dharamsala Men-Tsee-Khang trained Tibetan doctors working in the Darjeeling Hills, India. In the second part of this chapter I give the example of two biomedical terms, ‘oxygen’ and ‘haemoglobin’, and analyse how they are used and interpreted in the Tibetan clinical practice of Amchi Jamyang Tashi at the Kalimpong Men-Tsee-Khang