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Traditional Thailand Medical
Practices
Western medical practices in Thailand are for the most part,
restricted to modern hospitals and clinics in Thailand's larger
towns and cities.
However, in villages and rural areas, the clinics and healers
specializing in traditional Thai medicine continue to practice
various forms of traditional healing which were codified in Thailand
over 500 years ago.
Traditional Thai medical theory features many parallels with India's
Ayurvedic healing tradition, as well
as Chinese medicine. In practice however, Thai diagnostic and
therapeutic techniques may differ significantly. Obviously
influenced to some degree by these traditions, Thai medicine in turn
has been the predominant influence on traditional medicine in
Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar (formerly Burma).
Most Thai medicine as practiced today is based on two surviving
medical texts from the Ayuthaya era, the Scripture of Diseases and
the Pharmacopoeia of King Narai. Presumably many more texts were
available before the Burmese sacked *Ayuthaya in 1767 and destroyed
the kingdom's national archives. A coexisting oral tradition passed
down from healer to healer conforms to the surviving texts; other
materia medica developed in the Ratanakosin (Bangkok) era are
founded on both these texts and the oral tradition.
Like medical practitioners elsewhere in the world, traditional Thai
physicians perform diagnoses by evaluating the pulse, heartbeat,
skin color/texture, body temperature, abnormal physical symptoms and
bodily excretions (e.g. blood, urine, feces) of their patients.
Unlike orthodox Western doctors, Thai healers favor a holistic
approach that encompasses internal, external and
psycho-spiritual
conditions. Thus, once diagnosed, patients may be prescribed and
issued treatments from among three broad therapeutic categories.
*Suriyothai, released in September of 2001, reflects the events
during this period. The movie is in Thai with English subtitles.
Though quite bloody, it is a very good movie.
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