The World’s Largest PharmacyAmbiance, rainforestCelebrating three decades of Pulse of the Planet, here’s a program from our archives.Plants and herbs used by rainforest dwellers have long been the basis for western medicines. But do indigenous people ever reap the benefits of these discoveries? I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Schultes: When our drugs can get to these people, they’ll be far better off than they are now using plant materials which may vary at different times of the year, or different times of the day even, and they might have to go half a mile or a mile away to get it, and so forth.”Dr. Richard Evans Schultes is Jeffrey Professor of Biology and director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University Emeritus. He spent years in the rainforests of South America working with indigenous peoples and studying their use of herbal medicines. Schultes: Take quinine, a tree that grows, natively, only in the Andes, discovered from Indians by some Jesuit missionaries and became famous because it cured the wife of the viceroy of Peru who had a high fever, and some Indians said, ‘this bark will help her.’For many years, quinine was the only thing. How many millions of poor people in India, where the rice patties were the spawning ground of these malarial mosquitoes, how many millions would have died with malaria unless they had cheap quinine? But it wasn’t a monopoly of the advanced civilized countries. It was available for the whole world.This archival program is part of our thirtieth anniversary celebration. Im Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
World's Largest Pharmacy
Do indigenous peoples benefit when western science "discovers" their herbal medicines? This archival program is part of Pulse of the Planet's 30th anniversary celebration. Richard Evans Schultes (1915 - 2001), "the father of modern ethnobotany", inspired the film "Embrace of the Serpent".
Air Date:07/06/2018
Scientist:
Transcript:
The World's Largest PharmacyAmbiance, rainforestCelebrating three decades of Pulse of the Planet, here's a program from our archives.Plants and herbs used by rainforest dwellers have long been the basis for western medicines. But do indigenous people ever reap the benefits of these discoveries? I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Schultes: When our drugs can get to these people, they'll be far better off than they are now using plant materials which may vary at different times of the year, or different times of the day even, and they might have to go half a mile or a mile away to get it, and so forth."Dr. Richard Evans Schultes is Jeffrey Professor of Biology and director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University Emeritus. He spent years in the rainforests of South America working with indigenous peoples and studying their use of herbal medicines. Schultes: Take quinine, a tree that grows, natively, only in the Andes, discovered from Indians by some Jesuit missionaries and became famous because it cured the wife of the viceroy of Peru who had a high fever, and some Indians said, 'this bark will help her.'For many years, quinine was the only thing. How many millions of poor people in India, where the rice patties were the spawning ground of these malarial mosquitoes, how many millions would have died with malaria unless they had cheap quinine? But it wasn't a monopoly of the advanced civilized countries. It was available for the whole world.This archival program is part of our thirtieth anniversary celebration. Im Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.