Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

60
Gustavo J. Martínez, Mara Sato and Marta Ojeda
stings in bangs, “pasmo” is that which goes all red, that line…like a red line, I don’t
know whether you’ve ever noticed it in a bang or in a sting, well: that is “pasmo”.
Its very dangerous… you have to stop it as soon as possible because it can cause a
heart attack”
The explanations given by the interviewed subjects regarding these disorders mention the
imbalances caused by thermal agents associated to the ―hot-cold‖ classification system. In
general, the affections produced by drafts when the body is hot or by differences in
temperature between the body and the environment are considered ―cold‖ illnesses (colds,
flues, cough, catarrh, earache, diarrhoea, and in some cases ―pasmos”). Ailments in bones
and muscles as well as paralysis are also attributed to the effects of cold temperature..
“Pain in bones is caused by cold and the “peje” is hot…is has two thorns, it is a
plant of the hills”
“Fresh is anything that contains cold and does not alter your pressure or anything
else in the body”
On the contrary, ailments produced by exposure to external (sun, embers, stoves, ovens)
or internal (fever, eating indigestible food) heat sources are ―hot‖ (odontalgia, haemorrhoids,
varicose veins, pains in legs, sun-stroke, some cases of ―pasmo” and ―empachos”).
Likewise, loss of blood makes people susceptible to getting fresh diseases; thus, a
woman is more vulnerable to gyneco-obstetric cold diseases if she is menstruating or a in a
postpartum stage (Anderson, 2004; Randall, 1993). The insistence for recent mothers to avoid
contact with water is explained in the same way and if this norm is not abided it impedes the
ability to breastfeed and causes severe illnesses that can even put the mother‘s life at risk.
This is evidenced by the following comments of a midwife:
“If you get wet during the 40 days after delivering a baby your next birth comes out
wrong. Only after 40 days. Nowadays babies are put into water as soon as they are
born. That is where the evilness of people comes from; there is so much illness now,
why? Because the women have baths…that is where all the diseases come from,
cancer and all that that comes out in women’s breasts. Because they get wet, but the
people don’t understand this; as soon as they give birth they are having baths. My
mother would advise me never to get wet when I had the baby. You couldn’t wet
anything, your body, your face, anything for 40 days. If not it is bad for you, you get
haemorrhages.”
“For example if you wet your hands when the baby is born your milk dries out, the
person’s milk disappears, it is “cut”. That is why people take care, so as not to get
lockjaw…if you don’t take care for 10 or 12 days. The lockjaw is a chill you get, and
that chill goes to your back. It has happened to me. If you wet your hands or wash
your face, that is where you get the draught of air. Before they would rub your back
with a slab of camphor oil to calm the spasm so the milk wouldn’t dry out. Now
nobody does that.”
- Falso cruz or Falzo crup (False croup): this is characterised as a beginning of asphyxia
that generally happens in children due to an inflammation in the thoracic region, a ―drop in