Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

Native Medicinal Plants used in the Ethnomedicine of the Córdoba Hills...
found in other regions of Argentina (Di Lullo, 1944; García & Jiménez, 1986; Arenas &
Galaffassi, 1994; Idoyaga Molina, 2001a,b, 2003; Disderi, 2001) and is deeply rooted in
Hispanic-European traditions (Kuschik, 1995; Pieroni, 2002). The diagnosis and therapy for
this ailment is reserved to specialists and generally does not involve plants. It is cured using a
practice very similar to that of other areas of America and Europe: a plate with water into
which some drops of oil are poured down a spoon. These therapies combine prayers and
magical incantations together with gestures symbolizing the expulsion of the cause of evil,
while pointing at the region of the temples. The treatment of these afflictions can also involve
the use of plant species that have been attributed magical or powerful properties, as for
example the use of rue (Ruta chalepensis) for the treatment of amnesia (Arenas & Galaffassi,
1994), or the use of ―guayacán‖ (Porlieria microphylla) for the treatment of ―evil eye‖
(Martínez, 2007; 2008a).
As evidenced in many anthropological studies that specifically refer to this topic, the
action of a ―daño” or sorcery is generally produced straight onto people, either the body itself
or any equivalent (footprints, clothes, humours), or can be carried out like a contamination of
the environment in which they live (houses, land, animals). The action of sorcery and its
connection with illness among the peasants of Córdoba is no different, as indicated
extensively in other studies (Martínez, 2003; Martínez & Planchuelo, 2003).
In summary, these types of imbalances express the tensions, and social and personal
conflicts that arise from the interpersonal emotions in a community, and are translated as the
effect of evil omens in the social sphere of the persons involved. An etiology of this type is
frequently interpreted with afflictions that are prolonged in time and whose cause cannot be
explained by the official medicine ambit, which usually gives a favourable diagnosis
(Barrios, 2000). Therefore, the intervention of a specialist or healer is requested for both a
diagnosis and for treatment as these are imbalances that, as the locals say, ―doctors don’t
know how to cure”.
2. How Peasants Prevent and Cure Different Afflictions
Although in this section I refer to the aspects related to traditional preventative and
therapeutic practices, and our studies were focused on the content of the narrations rather
than on the practices themselves, I must point out that in order to avoid an essentialist or
static view of their medicine, the representations and praxis described here are articulated
within the framework of therapeutic itineraries or surveys including the entire local
ethnomedical system. In other words, apart from visiting a healer to cure their maladies,
many peasants also go to dispensaries and hospitals, take aspirins, accept pills, vaccines and
injections, use contraceptives, supplement treatments, practise rituals and prayers, buy plants
in herbariums, obtain information of new medicines by the media, and even generate
interpretations, answers and new treatments to new diseases like cancer. Hence, the
traditional medicine practices I describe here are dynamic and permeable to the political
influences of global health politics. Therefore, this medicine is related to other settings like
official medicine, religious cures and, to a lesser degree, alternative medicine, all of which
constitute the local ethnomedical system.
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