In the rainforests of South America, native peoples have long used plants to treat everything from arthritis to athlete’s foot. But out of the rainforest’s countless variety of plants, how were those initial discoveries made? I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“Certainly one of the keys to the utility of flora is bitters.”
Mark Plotkin is Executive Director of the Amazon Conservation Team.
“The concept of bitters is found in every culture. It’s in the bible. If it tastes bad, it’s good for you. Look at cod liver oil here at home. Quinine is one of the bitterest substances known. Quinine is also the front line treatment for malaria which is the greatest killer of our species of all time. So if something’s bitter, that’s one way that they knew that there might be something in it. Another is weird colors. I can take you to the Amazon, slash the bark of a tree and the sap will come out yellow and it’ll turn orange and it’ll turn red. So that you know there’s some weird chemistry going on there and many of the things the Indians in the Northeast Amazon use are funny colored saps.”
But what the seemingly ineffective plants which, when combined into complex mixtures, make powerful medicines?
“It may just be trial and error, but maybe there’s something more than that. We’re still teasing out the results to figure out what’s going on.”
The more scientists study the South American rainforest, the more they learn what indigenous peoples seem to have known for centuries: that amongst the vast array of rainforest plants lies an incredible wealth of medicines. We may never know how the Indians first discovered them, but most of these plants and their medicinal properties still remain unknown to western science.
Additional funding for Pulse of the Planet has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.