Some traditional formulas their typical uses in the practice of traditional Mongolian medicine

Abstract

Items related to medicine used by ancient nomads, archeological findings from Mongolia, and ancient medical books from China, Tibet, and Manchu demonstrate that Traditional Mongolian Medicine is an ancient science with a history of over 5,000 years. The history of medical science shows that humankind has had a long, difficult journey in fighting diseases. Ancient felt dwellers and nomadic tribes adapted to natural evolution and harsh climate and identified means to heal diseases caused by customary habits. These treatment tools, particularly medicinal herbs, and animal-oriented medicines, were practiced and improved for many generations, and thus, a complex disease prevention system was formed. Most Traditional Mongolian Medicine treatments involve formula. Our country has discovered over 900 types of medical plants. In addition, Mongolia imports more than 100 components of traditional medicine from Inner Mongolia, China, and China. Mongolia produces renowned medicinal materials of animal origin, such as deer horn and bear gall, which are recognized locally and abroad. Modern science and technology assisted the production of Traditional Mongolian Medicine and pharmaceuticals, and an industrialized production system of medicaments was set up.

A new philosophy for health-system development based on preventive medicine, rather than curative, and wide community participation and involvement of individuals and families in improving their general health must go hand in hand with improved intersectional collaboration. In addition, in 1999, the Mongolian Parliament endorsed the “National Policy on the Development of Traditional Mongolian Medicine.” The basic guidelines focus on staff training, standardizing the training curriculum, improving research and applying it to medical practice, translating ancient medical literature from old Mongolian script and Tibetan, in-house training of specialists, and increasing the number of pharmaceutical production enterprises. Policy on traditional medicine needs to be developed in line with that of international organizations such as the WHO.

In addition, within the framework of this policy, it is important to explain the use of traditional medicine in easy-to-understand language, not in old terms of traditional medicine, particularly wind, bile, phlegm, and five elemental theories. The interdependence, opposition, restriction, and transformation among three physiological systems, known as the three causal factors wind, bile, and phlegm (rlung, tripa, and beken), are used to discuss the balance of the whole1. It is of great importance to make the method of using traditional medicine simple and clear with these theoretical terms. Therefore, this study expresses our views on translating medicine formulas in ancient medicinal books widely used in Mongolian traditional medicine into English. We wrote the Tibetan and Mongolian names of traditional medicines in Latin transliteration of Mongolian Cyrillic scripts and translated some theoretical terms into English.