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Relating to a research project in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, Northwest-India, the paper examines indications that the shamanic vocation and practice grew significantly in this region. The author tries to link this increase to severe psychological pressures imposed by the heavy presence of the Indian Army, political and administrative ties to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (with a predominantly Muslim population), and the region's status as a popular tourist destination. The paper argues that shamanic rituals performed by so-called oracles that embody deities of the Buddhist pantheon in trance (lhamo, lhapa) not only provide important services of healing and divination, they contribute significantly to medical prevention in times of growing competition and the deterioration of value systems. Turning from a local (Ladakh, the Tibetan Plateau) to a global perspective, it is further argued that the preventive function of shamanism has often been overlooked in previous ethnographic research and might be neglected by increasing efforts (also fostered by indigenous ritualists themselves) to establish and legitimize traditional ritual practices as part of modern health care systems which might eventually lead to the medicalization of traditional ceremonies--in short: "shamans do a lot more than just heal people".

Reinhold Mueller has been the one and only historian of medicine in Germany who worked in the field of the Indian history of medicine from the 1920s to the 1960s. He influenced German, American and Indian researchers, but he was nearly forgotten soon after his death. This is the first paper about his life and work to be published. Mueller studied a wide range of topics, the history of Indian gynaecology, of psychiatry, of immunology and of general practice and his subsequent articles were published in the principal contemporary magazines. However, he did not have a perfect understanding of Sanskrit language and writing. Moreover, as he subordinated his research to the premises of National Socialism and of communism, some of his articles have to be seen as part of an Aryan-Germanic race discourse. Yet, these inadequacies and mistakes did not prevent other researchers from maintaining contact with him after 1945. Even when Anglo-American historians of medicine began to study Indian medicine in the 1980s, his publications were re-examined and analysed.