A Tibetan medical culture museum opened on Saturday in Xining, capital city of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

 

It is the first museum displaying the culture and evolution of traditional Tibetan medicine.

 

Taking up 12,000 square meters and costing 120 million yuan (US$15 million), the museum boasts over 2,000 botanic and animal specimens, 80 wall maps, 1,000 books and 180 surgical appliances about 1,300 years old.

 

Luo Yulin, vice governor of Qinghai, said the museum is helpful in protecting traditional Tibetan medicine as cultural heritage and enhancing academic exchanges of Chinese Tibetan medicine with the outside world.

 

Tibetan medicine has a history of thousands of years. Influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, it is performed following religious rituals.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2006)