Newsline for Pharmacists, May 1996

U.S. STUDENTS MEET RAIN FOREST MEDICINE
By Michael Samsot

"We were following Thomas Greene, an 89-year-old traditional Creole healer, down a trail . . . and he picks a handful of that. Then he holds it out and says to us 'this will give you more energy than a whole tin of Ovaltine.'" Fourth-year Duquesne University pharmacy student Tara Tyger was describing a recent trip she, 12 other students, two faculty members, and two pharmacists made to the rain forests of Belize in Central America. They were there to study and document the use of plants in traditional healing methods.

Dan Wagner, RPh, MBA, and doctoral candidate coordinated and guided the study trip. He says he believes this is the first ever venture of this type for U.S. pharmacy students. The 13 Duquesne students included five fourth-year pharmacy students, two freshmen, five premed students and one environmental science student. "They actually went to the rain forest -- the learning medium -- to take part in phytomedicinal discoveries, collection of plant samples for the National Cancer Institute and the New York Botanical Garden, interaction with local shamans and medicine men and women...and workshops at the Ix Chel Tropical Research Centre in western Belize." NCI will be screening the samples for possible use as plant-based cancer and AIDS drugs.

Wagner, who is an adjunct professor of pharmacy management at Duquesne and owns the Medi Pharmacy in Allison Park, PA, says the trip was financed in part (about one-third) by a grant from the makers of Bayer aspirin. The rest came from private donations and the students themselves.

Talking again about Greene, Tyger says, "We were surprised when he mentioned Ovaltine," but apparently the product is quite popular there... because we later walked into a place to eat and saw Ovaltine milkshakes on the lunch menu." Tyger says she feels fortunate to have been with Greene. "He is such a fascinating man. He's funny, he knows an incredible amount about healing, and in addition, he's also extremely proud of this dory [a flat-bottomed Central American fishing boat] that he carved and exhibited in the World's Fair in New Orleans several years ago."

Heidi Oliver, another student in Greene's group, says that following Greene around on the rain forest medicine trail and trying to get all the information recorded was quite an experience. "He spoke English and Creole and Spanish, and mixed them together all the time. He'd collect these plants and have the recipes for them in his head, and just rattle them off. We had to ask him sometimes to stop and sit for a minute so we could be sure to get down everything he said."

Belize has several levels of healers, Wagner says, including granny healers, mid-wives, snake doctors, bushmasters, and a few doctor priests-the highest level. There are also several different cultures in the country, with Mayan peoples, Creoles, and African descendants predominating. Healers come from all these groups, and while they all represent each other, their use of plants may not be the same; two different healers might choose the same plant for two different uses.

"What I liked best about the trip," says Wagner, "was looking at the awe on the student's faces as they went through these courses. They learned so much. The shamans, the healers, don't write anything down. Everything is committed to memory and their knowledge is passed from generation to generation by word-of-mouth." Some healers though, he explains, say their offspring aren't interested in learning the art of traditional healing -- so now, in order to keep alive this tremendous body of knowledge, it's up to ethnobiologists to go to places like Belize, learn the language, observe and write down as much as they can about the plants and their healing properties. "If we don't get this information written down," says Wagner, "it will soon be lost forever."

Wagner, who is a veteran of recent travels to rain forests in Peru, Belize and Guatemala, says he became interested in this type of project about a year and a half ago, when he participated in a program called Pharmacy from the Rainforest, sponsored by the American Botanical Council, the Texas Pharmacy Foundation, and the International Expedition Corporation. "It was something that just sounded interesting," he says.

"During that program, I met Dr. Rosita Arvigo, who runs the Ix Chel Research Centre." Arvigo, Wagner says, is a naprapath who studied in the U.S. Fifteen years ago, she went with her husband to Belize to study Mayan medicinal plants and to have the freedom to practice medicine that they believe in -- a more natural, holistic approach. Wagner's group worked under the direction of Dr. Arvigo and her husband, Gregory Shropshire, also a naprapath. [Naprapaths employ a system of therapy that uses dietary measures and the manipulation of connective tissues, such as ligaments, muscles and joints, to facilitate the recuperative and regenerative processes of the body.]

The students received instructions from Dr. Arvigo on the art of plant collection in the rain forest, and then separated into groups of three or four, each accompanying a local indigenous healer or medicine man or woman. Their task was to follow the healer, describe fully each plant he or she collected, noting the Mayan, Spanish and English names.

"Plants are only collected when they're flowering," Wagner says, "in order to make correct identification easier." In the group, "one person records what the healer is saying and the exact location of the plant. Another presses the leaves and flowers between layers of paper and cardboard, and someone else collects multiple samples of the same plant. Every member of the team has a chore. After a sample is collected, it's marked with the date, the team number and a plant collection number."

"It's important to describe the plant completely and to note exactly what it's used for and how it's used," Wagner continues. "If a sample goes back to the NCI, and the notes says that the root or the flower was used for a particular remedy, then the researchers there don't have to waste time testing every single part of the plant. For example, you might write down that the healer says to take the leaves, crush them, boil them for 24 hours to make a tea, and then drink a cupful every two hours for three to four days." Wagner explains that this gives researchers a valuable starting point in their testing process.

Dustin Case is a pharmacy student who before the trip was somewhat skeptical about what traditional medicine could do for patients. "But I learned that about 25% of the modern medicines we use in the U.S. are already plant-based." Case says he's had his eyes opened and has learned a lot about how closely allied traditional healing can be with modern medicine. For example, the wild yam, which is used in the rain forest for its anti-inflammatory and birth-control properties (women chew on the root), actually provides the main ingredient for all modern birth control medications.

"It's interesting, too, to see how much these people use faith and prayer as a part of healing," Case says. "I've learned that sometimes faith and the feeling it produces can release substances in the body that fight disease." Oliver agrees, saying, "Dr. Arvigo opened up my whole view to the idea that you need to use not only synthetic drugs, but also natural medications. She also showed us how important the mind is to healing, and talked about the part that hope and faith can play even in things like bringing patients into remission from cancer."

Asked if he supplies herbal medications in his own pharmacy in Pennsylvania, Wagner replies, "Yes, like many other independent pharmacists, I am starting to get more involved in this. I've just returned from the American Pharmaceutical Association's annual convention, where I presented a lecture on the field collection of natural plants." At the convention, he said, were representatives from both the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, who, in addition to other subjects, also answered questions about herbal and alternative medicines.

"Already, one-third of Americans are using some form of alternative medicine, and in Europe, it's in all the pharmacies. It's an exciting field."

Wagner hopes to take other groups of students on this type of study trek, either to Belize or possibly to Costa Rica. "I believe there should be a symbiosis between modern medicine and traditional medicine that includes herbs and natural source products. Some people think that if you take a natural drug, you can't combine it with modern medicine, but that's not true," he says. The value of taking students on an expedition like this, he says, "is that when they are practicing, they'll be open to the integration of the two types of medicine, and therefore will have more ways to help their patients."



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