Page 69 - Proceedings of The Fifth Meeting of Indigenous Medicine in the Mekong Basin

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4. MYANMAR

4.1 Mr. (U) Ba Thein

Hometown: Mandalay
Ethnic group represented: Myanmar
Years of practice: 52 years
Area of expertise: “Vissadara Naya” Traditional Medicine on
cardiovascular disease, neurological disease, and respiratory
system
Previous award or recognition received: -
Work experiences: U
Ba Thein, 75, is a traditional
medicine practitioner
who accumulated his
experience and skill on
traditional medicine for
more than 50 years. He
used to treat 100 patients per day. Nowadays, he
has to lower the number of patients due to his age.
U Ba Thien was also invited by many top-level
officials of other counties to treat the patients outside Myanmar.
Knowledge transfer: He learned traditional Myanmar medicine knowledge from his
grandfather and the monks. His daughter is the successor to his traditional medicine clinic.
Treatment process: The instruments for physical
examination and diagnosis consist of knife, horn,
wand, and medicinal root. He uses these instruments
to diagnose and examine each part of patient’s body
to find the health problems and to treat the patient at
the same time. When he touches the body part that
has health problem with the instrument, the patient
will feel heat and pain and this feeling will continue at
every further touch. After continuing treatment with
the instrument, patient will find the intensity
decreasing and their health problems will be fixed.
The treatment evaluation will be taken from questioning the patient how he/she feels, and
observing their pain reaction shown towards his touch. The patients will be advised to refrain
from taking a bath for 1 day and they can get the continuing treatment after 3 days pass.
Professional attitude: He’s very proud to be a folk
healer.
Showcase summary: Based on Vissadara Naya,
U Ba Thein gave the treatment to the patients by
using his instruments (knife, horn, wand, and
medicinal root) to touch their various parts of body to
find which part of their body had health problem.
Then, he used his magic knife to take away the root
of disease. The patients felt great pain at first but
that feeling later subsided.