Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

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Gustavo J. Martínez, Mara Sato and Marta Ojeda
other home remedies are articulated with the attention provided in primary health care centres
and other official medicine ambits, as well as with places dispensing alternative medicines.
For more specific information on the environments and inhabitants of each of the regions
considered in this review, we suggest the reader to consult each of the individual studies cited
in this analysis shown in Figure 1.
Methodological Aspects
[1] The present review is based on investigations supported by pluri-methodological
approaches combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. It is divided into three
thematic sections:
I. From the perspective of a qualitative investigation with an ethnographic approach,
we present the medical ethnobotanics of highland criollo peasants based on a series
of studies performed between 2001 and 2007 in the intermountain valleys of
Paravachasca and Calamuchita in the Sierras Chicas region of the province of
Córdoba (Martínez & Planchuelo, 2003; Martínez, 2005b, 2007, 2008a,b). In this
section we interpret the use of medicinal plants and other remedies, not only
describing the uses given to plants but also trying to understand these practises
considering the particular way the peasants of this region conceive, diagnose and
treat diseases. Within this context, and in addition to the documented collection of
plant specimens, the therapeutic practices and plants used by more than 60 local
inhabitants were registered by open and extensive interviews, semi-structured
surveys and data from participative observations. Although this work is based on a
regional study, we obtained similar information in experiences and encounters with
inhabitants from other regions of central Argentina, showing that this study
documents a characteristic and genuine expression of traditional peasant medicine of
highland environments. Consequently, the content of this review is extensive to all
the inhabitants of valleys and hills in our province.
II. A summary of medicinal plants and their applications obtained from ethnobotanical
investigations carried out in the province of Córdoba. For this we developed a
database to catalogue the medicinal species with their corresponding applications
and regional uses. The studies included in this analysis were strictly ethnobotanical,
in other words they were based on information obtained by interviewing local
inhabitants before documenting the herbarium specimens sustaining the results.
These specimens were grouped according to the geographical location of the
surveys, which belong to the following four regions of the province of Córdoba
(Figure 1):