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THE SELECTION PROCESS OF THE "MATERIA MEDICA": THE APPROACH OF A TIBETAN PRACTITIONER IN THE REGION OF DHORPATAN (NEPAL)
rivideglstudorie Rivista degli studi orientali
Short Title: THE SELECTION PROCESS OF THE "MATERIA MEDICA"
Format: Journal Article
Publication Date: Nov 30, 2005
Pages: 47 - 64
Sources ID: 104441
Visibility: Public (group default)
Abstract: (Show)
During spring and summer 1998 at the clinic of the Tibetan refugees' settlement of Dhorpatan (Baglung District, central Nepal) the authors conducted a field study on Tibetan pharmacology and materia medica. Moving to an unfamiliar environment, learned practitioners of Tibetan medicine on the basis of their experience and through the analysis of various plant and environmental features are able to identify the materia medica of the region. This is the case of Dhorpatan, where at the beginning of the 1990s a Tibetan doctor coming from Khyungbo (east Tibet, China) selected the plants that can be employed in therapeutics. As far as the identification criteria are concerned, our field data show that the evaluation of plant morphology is only the first step of the identification process. In fact our informant takes into consideration plant taste, scent and environment of growth, stressing that these features are crucial to assess plant therapeutic properties. Owing to the isolation of the area and to the difficulty of getting all the drugs required, compromises on the identification have to be made. This implies the selection of a few plants that do not have the best therapeutic properties and are substitutes of low quality. The comparison between the botanical identification of the plants selected in Dhorpatan and the ones described in a modern Tibetan pharmacopoeia showed a significant similarity.