While medicinal plants are often overlooked in Western culture, other societies place great value on their healing powers. Recently, nutrition has gained a great deal of attention, with foods such as ginger, green tea, walnuts and other plants being recommended for their therapeutic value. Other plant derivatives are potent medicines that we use without even knowing it, providing the active ingredients in essentials like aspirin and toothpaste. The pharmaceutical industry looks to the knowledge of tribal shamans for new drug compounds, but time is running out as modern civilization overtakes these remote cultures and the wilderness that surrounds them.
Alternative Medicine?
In Western culture the idea of using plants for medicinal purposes is categorized as "alternative medicine." Current dogma dictates that only drugs that come in pill form can be trusted. However, many of the pills that we depend on came from plants. For instance, the active ingredient in aspirin comes from the bark of the willow tree. In fact, a number of marketed drugs, including laxatives, blood thinners, antibiotics and anti-malaria medications, contain ingredients from plants, explains Dr. Mark Plotkin in his book "Medicine Quest."
Tribal Shamans
Plotkin has traveled far and wide to learn the secrets of tribal shamans. Part botanist, part doctor, shamans employ healing powers using profound knowledge of plant species. Their tribes depend solely on this plant-based medicine. Pharmaceutical companies sometimes look for insights from these healers when seeking new potential drugs. It is a race against time to gather as much information as possible before modern culture obliterates these libraries of knowledge.
Edible Medicine
Plotkin has discovered obscure plants used as remedies for everything from parasitic infections to diabetes. But often herbal remedies are much closer to home, and we may not realize it. Ginger has been used for centuries in Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures for its antacid, laxative, digestive and antitussive properties. Foods such as artichoke, garlic, cinnamon, barley, oatmeal, flaxseed and walnuts lower cholesterol. Green tea may be beneficial for a variety of ills, including arthritis, infertility and genital warts. These examples from the Mayo Clinic illustrate the fact that the line between food, supplement and medicine is often nonexistent, and that we may be using plants for medicinal purposes every day without knowing it.
Topical Treatments
Other plants have topical uses. American bloodroot extracts are used in plaque-fighting toothpastes. Witch hazel is commonly sold in liquid form as an anti-itch, anti-inflammatory agent (and works quite well against unrelenting bedbug bites). And aloe is a soothing and restorative treatment for burns.
Poison or Potion?
Some plant compounds are more toxic, and here the line between medicine and poison can be blurred. Plotkin indicates that dicumarol, a compound found in spoiled sweet clover, was first discovered for its ability to cause hemorrhage, but in smaller doses is now used as an anticoagulant. The synthetic analog is called warfarin, or coumadin, and is highly prescribed to prevent strokes.
Animal Wisdom
While in modern times we are often unaware of these plant-based medicines, human have been using plants for medicinal purpose since they started walking upright. Plotkin describes a Neanderthal burial site that was found with an array of medicinal plants decorating the deceased. The history of medicinal uses of plants may even date back before the dawn of humans. Both chimps in Africa and New World monkeys in South America seek out plants to cure themselves of parasitic infections. Plotkin states that "the great apes are known to employ over thirty species of plants for medicinal purposes." He even suggests that elephants, rhinos, bears, deer and porcupines do so as well. In fact, tribal cultures attribute their knowledge of medicinal plants to learning from the animals around them. In addition, experimentation guided by bitter taste leads to identification of alkaloid compounds, which often have medicinal qualities.
References
- "Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets"; Mark J Plotkin; 2000
- Mayo Clinic: Ginger
- Mayo Clinic: Lowering Cholesterol
- Mayo Clinic: Green Tea
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