La Farmacia
Since I have been in Ecuador, many people have told me of different plants that are good for this or that ailment and are growing everywhere. I have always been interested in natural medicines especially those that will prevent you from getting sick in the first place, so I started clearing a small section which I call “La Farmacia”, the Spanish word for drugstore. Each time I learned of a plant that had a medicinal quality, I would look for it in the wild and transplant it in La Farmacia. I now have six.
After reading “Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice”, by Nicole Maxwell, (1905-1996), it gave me a whole lot more information. It was a fascinating story of this woman’s travel into the Amazon Region, mostly in Peru, from the early 50’s to the late 80’s. Her passion was finding and cataloging plants that had medicinal value and then trying to interest pharmaceutical companies in the United States to open their collective eyes and minds to a whole new plethora of life saving drugs that were ready for picking. As I read, I realized that I had many of the plants right here under my nose. All I needed to do was identify them, and to do this I needed help. The next time I go to town I will spend some time on the Internet. I am sure
Today I took a hike on the other side of the Pastaza River with our one employee Lourdes and her husband Andreas. They both know a lot about the plants in the region and as luck would have it, we found one of the Sangre de Grado trees a few feet off the trail. This was one that was described in Nicole Maxwell’s book. If you slash the trunk, the sap is the color and consistency of blood. This sap is good for a large number of ailments as I remembered. After slashing the trunk we collected a few drops on a leaf. Andreas rubbed the sap on the back of my hands. As he rubbed it in the color changed from red an almost white cream and then disappeared into the skin. Lourdes commented that if you did this two time a day, the dark spots that I and many other people my age are plagued with, would disappear. I am going to check this out.
On the way back home Andres spotted a small “Sangre de Drago seedling, less than a meter high . We dug it up, or to be more honest, he pulled it up by the roots and I brought it back to its new home in La Farmacia. I am not sure it will live but almost everything I have transplanted to date has lived. It seems that if you plant a stick it will start sprouting leaves.
We found one other plant, I don’t remember the name, which we also brought back. I will find more about it later. .
After reading “Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice”, by Nicole Maxwell, (1905-1996), it gave me a whole lot more information. It was a fascinating story of this woman’s travel into the Amazon Region, mostly in Peru, from the early 50’s to the late 80’s. Her passion was finding and cataloging plants that had medicinal value and then trying to interest pharmaceutical companies in the United States to open their collective eyes and minds to a whole new plethora of life saving drugs that were ready for picking. As I read, I realized that I had many of the plants right here under my nose. All I needed to do was identify them, and to do this I needed help. The next time I go to town I will spend some time on the Internet. I am sure
Today I took a hike on the other side of the Pastaza River with our one employee Lourdes and her husband Andreas. They both know a lot about the plants in the region and as luck would have it, we found one of the Sangre de Grado trees a few feet off the trail. This was one that was described in Nicole Maxwell’s book. If you slash the trunk, the sap is the color and consistency of blood. This sap is good for a large number of ailments as I remembered. After slashing the trunk we collected a few drops on a leaf. Andreas rubbed the sap on the back of my hands. As he rubbed it in the color changed from red an almost white cream and then disappeared into the skin. Lourdes commented that if you did this two time a day, the dark spots that I and many other people my age are plagued with, would disappear. I am going to check this out.
On the way back home Andres spotted a small “Sangre de Drago seedling, less than a meter high . We dug it up, or to be more honest, he pulled it up by the roots and I brought it back to its new home in La Farmacia. I am not sure it will live but almost everything I have transplanted to date has lived. It seems that if you plant a stick it will start sprouting leaves.
We found one other plant, I don’t remember the name, which we also brought back. I will find more about it later. .
posted by Roberto at 1:20 PM
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