|
| Medicinal Plants |
June 15th, 2003.
By Professor Fabio Cupul
University of Guadalajara Puerto Vallarta Campus
|
The use of plants and herbs as remedies
against various illnesses is quite extensive in traditional
medicine. In ancient times and today, their use has
been questioned because of the large amount of spiritualism
involved among those who promote their curative powers
or those who are subjected to them. However the foregoing
is paradoxical considering that approximately 60% of
modern medicines derive from natural or synthetic ingredients
that have been extracted from plants that proliferate
in various parts of the world, mainly in tropical forests.
 For
example, salycine, the basis for the manufacture of
aspirin, was obtained from a variety of sauce native
to Europe. For its part, quinine, extracted from the
Ecuadorian tree called “Cinchona”, is used
to combat malaria. The preceding shows us that the only
thing modern medicine is doing is rediscovering much
of the ancient remedies that our forefathers used or
that our close cousins, the animals, are still using
today.
In the forests of Tanzania, if a
chimpanzee doesn’t feel quite right, he searches
for the proper plants to cure himself, the same ones
used by the people of the region. Like them, he cures
infections caused by bacteria and fungus with the leaves
of the “Aspilia” plant (similar to the sunflower)
and other plants against stomach pain or to rid his
body of parasitical worms. Just like the natives, chimpanzees
use the same herbs to control the birth rate in their
group, inducing abortions with “Combretum”
and the leaves of the “Ziziphus”. It is
believed that the monkeys resort to this plant if their
family groups grow too much.
Also, in North America, the Navajo
Indians’ legends tell how the grizzly bears taught
them how to use plants of the Levisticum genus to get
rid of parasites. They watched the bears chewing on
its leaves and imitated them. In the case of the mandrills
that are menstruating, they have a treatment against
the cramps that occur during that unpleasant period,
whereby they consume the leaves of the “Candelabro”
tree to lessen the discomfort.
On the other hand, not all primates
use natural remedies to reduce they progeny. For example,
the female howling monkey of Costa Rica is able to choose
the sex of its offspring by eating leaves that contain
a substance whose effects still remain a mystery. The
dominant female of a group tends to give birth to dominant
males. Her interest in obtaining those results stems
from the fact that specimens of the male sex can father
up to 40 offspring during their lifetime and as such,
they will be responsible for their mother’s genes’
appearance in all the subsequent generations. Female
howling monkeys always have priority when the time comes
to eat, and they can choose the plant that contains
the substance that determines the sex. Meanwhile, the
lower ranked females feed on “normal” leaves,
as they must give birth to more females responsible
for transmitting their genes because their male offspring
are underprivileged in the reproductive stage.
At times, carnivorous animals feel
the need to add some complement or other to their diet.
Sometimes, dogs and cats, like other felines, eat grass.
It is believed that grass contains folic acid which
is one of the B group of vitamins, essential to maintain
the body’s protein content and clean out toxins
such as hairballs or undigested food left over in the
animal’s intestines.
Curiously enough, besides human beings,
there is evidence of the use of psychoactive substances
or drugs in wildlife. In that regard, the Tucano Indians
of Colombia believe that jaguars regularly chew a hallucinogenic
liana they call “yaje” (yah-hay). The tribe’s
shaman uses the same plant in his rituals. After consuming
the plant, the shaman believes he is transported to
a kingdom where he can communicate with the animal spirits
and turn into an animal, mainly into a jaguar.
We know that when natives take “yaje”,
their visual abilities are heightened and their senses
become supersensitive. They believe that the plant has
the same effect on the jaguar, which sharpens its hunting
skills noticeably. These observations are only speculative,
but it is not impossible to establish that jaguars have
learned that when they consume this drug, they improve
their sense of smell or vision to be more successful
in their hunt for prey.
cupul@pvmirror.com Archives
by date |
Current
Weather Report
