According to A'dain, deputy director of the Health Department of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Tibetan pharmaceutical industry has entered a new historical stage, which, as part of human cultural heritage, will receive more attention in the new century.

It is reported that Tibet will hold the "2000 International Academic Conference on Tibetan Medicine" on July 15, currently more than 150 medical experts and scholars from abroad and 350 Chinese counterparts have signed up for the event.

The over 2000-year-old Tibetan medicine was going downhill under the feudal serf system. About 40 years ago, there were only three old medical institutions employing a staff of less than 100 people. There was no hospital bed, not to say research institutions and special schools. They were tailored to serve nobles, feudal lord and upper-stratum lamas, the vast number of peasants and herdsmen were deprived of any right to learn medicine or consult a doctor.

After the Democratic Reform was carried out in Tibet, the Tibetan medicine industry was ultimately fresh with youthful vigor. Over the past 40 years, the Chinese central government has invested over 800 million yuan in developing Tibetan medicine, setting up Tibetan medicine hospitals in seven Tibetan prefectures (cities), employing more than 1,000 people, at the same time, over 3,000 rural doctors of Tibetan medicine have been active in the vast agricultural and pastoral areas. In 1993, the Tibetan Medical Institute, the first modern medical institute of higher learning in the history of Tibet, was established in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

At present, this institute has more than 60 teachers and over 300 students, furthermore, all of them are Tibetans and all the teaching materials are written in Tibetan. Since its establishment, the institute has trained more than 600 professionals for Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai and some other places.

In a bid to inherit and develop Tibetan medical science, medical institutions of various types and at various levels have launched extensive research work on Tibetan medicine, and collected and collated nearly one hundred documents and academic works on Tibetan medical science.

　　(From People's Daily)