Introduction
Traditional medicine as it exists in Northern Thailand today is the result of a long historical and cultural development, and al-though our study is basically a synchronic one we feel it is indis-pensable to trace the most important historical lines and cultural influences that have molded this tradition into what it is today. This background knowledge will at least partly-explain the consider-able regional, local, and even individual variations that exist within the Thai medical tradition, and especially the development of the urban and rural variants. The Thais-like the Burmese and Vietnamese-are not among the original inhabitants of mainland Southeast Asia. These three eth-nic groups migrated southward into the region, the Thais being the last to arrive. When the first Thai-dominated kingdoms appeared in what is present-day Northern Thailand in the thirteenth century, the Thais had already been infiltrating the area from Yunnan and other parts of southern China for centuries. The Thais continued their southward expansion, and new Thai-dominated kingdoms ap-peared farther and farther south: in Sukhhothai (1250-1350), in Ayuthaya (1350-1767) and, finally, in Thonburi and Bangkok (1767-). These kingdoms were ruled by Thais, but the majority of the inhabitants were at least originally not necessarily Thais. The Thai kings have, up to the last century, looked to the em peror of China for official recognition, and tributary missions were regularly sent to the Chinese court. These ties with the Chinese empire, which were mostly a matter of formality, were a prerequi-site for the lively seaborne trade that developed with ports in southern China. This trade brought Chinese immigrants to Thailand, and the Chinese have come to play an important role in the social and economic development of the country. Thai culture, however, came to be heavily influenced by India, indirectly through the Mon-Khmer civilization that dominated the lowlands of Southeast Asia at the time the Thais first arrived. These local civilizations had been for centuries strongly influenced by In-dian culture. The Thai court followed the pattern of adopting (and adapting) the indianized culture of the people they conquered. Dur-ing the Ayuthaya period Indian influence thus became firmly estab-lished in many domains: the concept of divine kingship replaced the original Thai version of feudalism; Indian law-the Code of Manu-became the model for Thai law; the astrologers surrounding the king were Hindus; the alphabet was modeled after Indian (and Khmer) alphabets; Indian literary genres and metrics were intro-duced and, of course, Buddhism became the national religion. But besides the continual influence from the two "superpow-ers," India and China, Thailand had continual and reciprocal cultural exchanges with neighboring local powers, like the kingdoms of Ma-laysia and Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and particularly Burma, which was Thailand's main rival for centuries. Southeast Asia was until re-cently comparatively underpopulated, and the many wars fought during the centuries were fought mainly to obtain manpower. When one army conquered another, its main booty was thus prisoners of war who were brought back to be resettled in the country of the victors. This moving back and forth of sizable portions of the popu-lations in this area contributed together with the migrations-to an extensive mixture of the populations and their cultures.
About The Book
Traditional Herbal Medicine in Northern Thailand is a pioneering work offering a comprehensive analysis of the herbal medical tradition in rural Northern Thailand. The focus of the research is the description and classification of local disease concept and the complex relation ships between disease, plants, drugs, and prescriptions. The work is based on extensive communication with local practi tioners, clinical observations and local manuscripts. About 540 medici nal plants are identified in the appendix, together with their claimed medical properties. In addition, the book contains charters on the court medical tradition, and considers the prospects for the survival of traditional medicine in the face of competition ce of competition from modern cosmopoli-tan medicine. The authors also provide extensive vocabularies, as well as indexes of disease terms and botanical names, including a Thai index of disease terms. There is a wealth of information for those interested in medicine botany and ethnopharmacology, while the history and anthropological aspects of the work will interest many other students of Southeast Asia.
About The Author
Viggo Brun, associate professor in Thai Studies, De-partment of Asian Studies, University of Copenha-gen, has published on language, traditional sciences, folklore and politics in Thailand.
Trond Schmumacher is a medical doctor and bota-nist at the University of Oslo.
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