Page 57 - Proceedings of The Fifth Meeting of Indigenous Medicine in the Mekong Basin

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and overseeing administrative and academic work of the Committee for the
Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine
- The General Director of DTAM shall be the Head Registrar and the Head
of Provincial Public Health Office shall be Provincial Registrars with responsibilities
to collect information related to herbal and traditional medicine wisdom.
- Compiling Thai medicine formula and Thai traditional medicine
textbooks/manuals for the development of a Thai traditional medicine database

2. Development of Folk Medicine: Current situation
World Health Organization (WHO) has called for its members to include
traditional medicine in their primary health care (PHC) system, establishing
practitioners of traditional medicine as public health personnel. The support for the
use of herb in primary health care as well as the initiative to officially reinstate local
health care wisdom into the country’s health care system have brought about an
important change: the management of health care system has opened up a space
for traditional health care wisdom. It allows traditional medicine, although not
classified as medical science or biomedicine, to have its role in Thailand’s public
health care.
2.1 Studies and research
Support and development by the Ministry of Public Health and Non-
governmental organizations in more than two decades has brought about academic
movement such as research and development for utilization of traditional medicine in
health care system. In the first decade (1982 – 1992) there were 70 – 80 research
papers while there were 115 research papers in the following decade (1993 -2003)
with topics in social sciences, humanities, and traditional health wisdom in the
following fields:
(1) Indigenous system of health/wellness which is aimed at supporting people
to healthily carry on their normal life with balance
(2) Indigenous self care which is health maintenance within the family or
among relatives in the communities such as treatment for women after childbirth by
lying near an open fire
(3) Indigenous medicine which is healthcare performed by folk healers who
treat both physical and mental illnesses
With academic movements from many organizations to support community
health care and establish a learning system for self-reliant communities, studies are
conducted in the form of community-based action research. Especially in the study
of local wisdom and folk medicine, the villagers or community folk healers
themselves were the researchers.
A pioneer research for studies of folk medicine in the last ten years was a
project titled “An Analysis of Traditional Medical Theory and Practice in the Upper
North of Thailand (2002 -2004)”. This work has had influence in policy making. It
also had a major impact on academic works as well as health care system. Several
research on traditional medicine textbooks/manuals have been conducted: 1) A
Study on Thai Traditional Medicine Textbooks by Venerable Luangpu Suk of Wat
Makhamtow in Chainat Province. 2) Southern Wisdom in Local Medicine from
Traditional Manuscripts. 3) The Survey and Compilation of Traditional Medicine
textbooks in Phang Nga Province.
The Bureau of Thai Indigenous Medicine under DTAM has conducted studies,
organised a knowledge base of local health wisdom, and developed co-operations in
Thailand’s health system with its network organizations in the following issues: