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Ancient medicine bag being kept at Museum of Khentii aimag
Art & Culture
Khentii /MONTSAME/. A large medicine bag containing 20 leather and hide bags in various sizes that was once used by doctors is currently being kept at the Museum of Khentii aimag.
There are 5 spoons for dosing made of iron, copper, and brass. Its lengths range between 14.9 cm and 21.9 cm. All kinds of medicine and herbs were stored inside the bags, with its string tightly drawn and a wooden tag attached to each of them. The tags have tibetan scripts, which seems to tell about the herbs inside.
With the establishment of a medical school for Mongolian doctors by Kublai Khan in 1261, Mongolians have used traditional medical methods that are suited to extreme weather conditions to this day. The first ever Mongolian medical school - Manba Datsan was established by Luvtsandanzanjaltsan I at the end of the 17th century.
The term, ‘Manba datsan’, means the aimag of doctors in Tibetan. Since early on in history, doctors were prepared from the age of 8 over the course of over 20 years, presenting them medicine bags once they pass the test. The material used for the medicine bag used to identify the rankings of doctors, with the highest ranking doctors receiving the title, ‘Bandida’.
