Here is an image of some of the herbs discussed below!

The Road to a Fully Functioning Medicine Factory

དགོང་དྲོ་བདེ་ལེགས། (Good Evening) fellow villagers,

I am grateful to see that many individuals have either read my information on the necessity of Tibetan medicine or came to realize this on their own terms. Either way, other builders, farmers, traders and doctors approached me in the village the other day with much excitement to start this venture of creating our very own medicine factory. After our formal discussion and planning as a group, I have come to realize exactly how demanding it is to create from the ground up, a fully functioning medicine factory in Tibet.

As a group, we have come up with many tasks that must be completed before we can all distribute medicine to our community. To begin, we have to consider how to approach the actual structural and building aspect of the factory, its location and the materials that will be needed. Of course, we are all concerned with ensuring that the building will resemble the rest of our beloved Tibetan architecture. With this in mind, the builders have proposed instead of constructing a building from the bottom up, we should search our village for vacant buildings. On the east side of our village below the nunnery, there is a large enough vacant building that is suitable to be repurposed as a medicine factory. The builders will be forming an expedition to this side of the village to check the condition of the building and what more will be required to place it in prime condition.

Moreover, and probably the most important aspect of this large project is to determine what medicine this factory will produce. The doctors and myself are questioning whether we should focus on the medicine that is primarily used by our village or to expand our horizons and produce an array of medicine that may prove to be useful in the future. As of right now, we have not completely decided on one over the other and are just in the researching phases. However, while being an amchi in the village, I have come across many circulatory disorders and atherosclerosis. I have used 22 different traditional herbs to produce the medicine known as PADMA 28 to cure these disorders (these can include anything from bamboo, grapes saffron, hippophae, and crataeus to gentian, aconite, berberis, piper, terminalia, and aquilegia. This medicine and this combination of traditional herbs also have anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties that are extremely advantageous for our villagers. Therefore, I believe that a good starting point in deciding what medicine this factory will produce is to consider producing these 22 traditional herbs. Also, Rhodiola, mainly found on the rocky slopes at 16,000 feet is a red flower used in many Tibetan formulas. These formulas include bamboo 9, blue garuda bird and sandalwood 8. Bamboo 9 is mainly used in Tibetan medicine for coughing infections, fever and diarrhea. Blue garuda bird is mainly used in Tibetan medicine for acute inflammation of the lungs and throat, fever and dysentery. Lastly, the sandalwood 8 is used in Tibetan medicine to aid in inflammation of the lungs, blood and pus in the sputum. Along with Rhodiola, Hippophae, is a member of the Elaeagnaceae family found at an altitude of 6500 feet in cold climates, making it harder to come by. It is also used in many important Tibetan formulas. Some of these include blue poppy 8, amala 25 and hippophae 5. Blue poppy 8 is mainly used in Tibetan medicine to control excess blood from the liver into stomach lining. Amala 25 is used in Tibetan medicine to remove bad blood in the body, reduce blood pressure and treat dryness of throat and mouth. Lastly, hippophae 5 is used in Tibetan medicine for chronic inflammation of the lungs and suppresses coughing. These two Tibetan herbs would be beneficial to have in abundant supply in our medicine factory.

But, the next question is, how are we all going to actually obtain these herbs to create some of these desired medicines I mentioned above? Many of the farmers in our village that are willing to help with this venture have mentioned that they are growing an elaborate collection of herbs on their farms. The doctors will have to form a final list of herbs required and give this to the farmers to grow and provide to the factory. Similar to the building and medicine aspects of this project, the farming is still in the initial stages. In the immediate future, more will be completed.

One of the last issues we discussed as a group is how the herbs and materials grown by the farmers will be transported to the factories. The traders of the group mentioned that they would be able to coordinate with the farmers a daily system that will provide the factory with a daily supply of the required materials. Although, a huge proportion of the materials will need to be obtained form India and China and bringing herbs from India and China to Tibet has historically proven to be quite difficult. We will have to discuss this further to come up with a working resolution.

For updates about the Tibetan medicine factory project, please keep reading my posts!

Dainin Daeshim