Anthropological issues in medical ethnobotany

While ethnobotany has emerged as an important discipline in the search for new drugs, this economic impetus should in no way distract from a more ethnobiological and equally critical goal--the codification and promotion of indigenous medical systems as a major factor in the conservation of biocultural diversity. Codification of indigenous medical systems requires a holistic view which entails (1) in-depth understanding of the recognized health conditions in the native system and how they might be described in terms of Western biomedicine; (2) comprehensive inventories of medicinal species employed in the native system, descriptions of their modes of preparation and administration and giving priority to those species most likely to merit pharmacological testing; and (3) identification of the pharmacological properties of these species with the goal of discovering how they might be effective in the treatment of the health conditions for which they are employed. Promotion of indigenous medical systems requires the development of local training programmes aimed at the active conservation and enhancement of traditional herbal medicinal therapies that have been shown to be pharmacologically effective in the treatment of symptoms of recognized health conditions. The establishment of such programmes is critical at a time when traditional medical systems are often disparaged as worthless by the national societies in which indigenous peoples live, as well as by younger members of the native populations themselves.