Missionary beginnings

On Sunday 12 June 1707, two Capuchin missionaries arrived in Lhasa, which was then a cosmopolitan city, albeit with little or no knowledge of the far-off European powers. Granted an interview with Tibet's Regent, the missionaries stated that they, ‘were doctors and wherever they went they practiced medicine for God's sake’. The pair were allowed to stay in Lhasa and Friar Francis Mary of Tours, who unlike his companion actually did have some medical experience, began to treat patients. His reputation grew rapidly; among those who came to him for treatment was the personal physician of the Regent and the Dalai Lama, and his achievements were reportedly even mentioned in the Peking Gazette. After Friar Mary returned to India, his successors continued the practice of medicine in Lhasa, finding it a ready means to gain the local peoples’ trust, something that was essential to their efforts to convert the Tibetans to Christianity.

A Friar Dominic, who for ten months in 1710-11 was the sole Capuchin in Lhasa, treated 80-90 patients a day, including both the Regent's wife and the Chinese representative in the Tibetan capital. Friar Dominic's success was apparently such that both the Chinese and the Mongols wanted him to accompany them to their homelands, and eventually he had to flee to India to escape their demands. Before his departure, however, he taught his medical skills to Friar Joachim of Anatolia, who soon came to enjoy similar success and status, and when Joachim left for India in 1733 he received a letter of thanks from the Regent. Later Friar Joseph Mary of Gargnano continued medical practice in Lhasa, but the Capuchins had made few converts and were becoming increasingly unpopular as a result of their intolerance to Buddhism. The mission closed for the last time in 1745.

Despite their failings in the religious sphere, the Capuchins’ medical achievements would seem to have been considerable. Even allowing for the fact that their accounts doubtless accentuate the positive, it appears from their patronage by Tibetan, Mongol, and Chinese elites that the missionary doctors gained a high reputation.