The four-storeyed building housing the Lhasa Hospital of　Tibetan Medicine was put to　use last spring. Equipped with modern facilities in downtown　Lhasa, the hospital treats about 800 patients every .day.

Tibetan medicine with a history of over 1,000 years is a part of traditional Chinese　medicine widely practised in parts of northwest and southwest China, and is closely linked with the school of medicine practised　elsewhere in　the country.

The Lhasa hospital　was established in 1959. It had four　departments:　medicine, surgery, gynecology and acupuncture and moxibustion. After the new building was completed, an ENT (ear-nose-throat) department, emergency room, electrocardiograph room　and a laboratory were added, and its medical staff went up　from 65 to 114.

Before the new building was built, doctors of Tibetan medicine made diagnoses of gastric troubles, dysentery and various lung troubles only through taking the pulse. With modern diagnostic aids today more　accurate diagnoses are done to obtain more effective treatment. A beginning is also being made to develop Tibetan medicine and pharmacology.

A research institute of Tibetan medicine has been established in the hospital. Research is under way on the legacy of　traditional Tibetan medicine　and pharmacology, and doctors　are studying the clinical treatment of arthritis, gastric ulcers and other diseases by Tibetan　medical lore.

(This article appears on page 30, No. 34, 1979)