In a world where the visible and tangible rewards of a surgically-based, antibiotically-driven ‘Western scientific’ medicine or ‘biomedicine’ always seem to supplant indigenous methods of healing, it is important to remember that moments of encounter always work in both directions. Many have noted the intrinsically integrative and syncretic character of Tibetan medicine, dating back to its inception (Meyer 1992, Dummer 1988, Clark 1995) and, as others have noted (McKay and Saxer, in this volume), encounters between Tibetan medicine and biomedicine and/or modern science date back at least a hundred years.¹ Tibetan medicine today contains elements that reflect these encounters. Nevertheless,