Beijing, July 26 – Tibetan surgeons knew surgical procedures as complicated as craniotomy as early as the eighth century, about 10 centuries before their western counterparts.
According to China View, a book called Four Volumes of Medicine Dictionary recorded operational methods of surgical instruments as well as the meridian of the human body.
According to the book, the Dalai Lama’s surgeon, Damo Losang Aoizhag, had remade about 100 surgical instruments.
“The fifth Dala Lama’s cataract was said to be cured by Damo Losang Aoizhag using these instruments,” a report quoted, Goinqog Wangdu, a professor from medicine school of the Tibet Autonomous Region, as saying.
Tibetan surgery was so advanced because of a popular seventh century funeral custom known as the celestial burial. The people of the region believed that fast disintegration of the body after death would increase chances of reincarnation. Dignitaries in charge of the funeral were responsible for dissecting the corpses, which were to be fed to the birds.
