Note 13 — Chapter XI · SOCIAL DIVISIONS—MARRIAGE—FUNERALS—MEDICINE—FESTIVALS.

The physicians of High Asia have, I am told, discovered such remarkable properties of vegetable drugs, and of the flesh and bile of certain animals, and of some sorts of excrements in healing different kinds of sores, that if the statements of my informant be true, the surgeons of civilized countries would be struck with wonder at their marvellous performances. For this remarkable success, the Tibetans do not appear to be indebted to their Chinese or Indian neighbours.13 Their medicines are mostly indigenous, and their discoveries in surgery have resulted from their own experience. They supply the greater number of physicians and surgeons to the Mongols and other neighbouring peoples.