JanisMurray's Blog

Many of our medicines and supplements come from plants and the Missouri Botanical Garden is in the forefront of this research worldwide. 

What they do is they send out "ethnobotanists" to remote areas of the globe to find out how people (the "ethno") are using plants (the "botany").  This all is headed up by our guest this week, Dr. Rainer Bussmann, of the William Brown Center for Plant Research.

He's a great guy who told me the story of Quinine as an example . . .Quinine grow on the Quinine tree and indigenous people in South America have used it for centuries to cure malaria.  When the Spanish explorers arrived in the 16-1700's they were prey to malaria, and learning about quinine from the locals saved their lives!  They took samples of this plant back to Spain with them and thus the knowledge of the healing powers of quinine spread through Western Europe.

So today ethnobotanists travel to Peru, Madagascar, Africa, and Asia in search of helpful plants . . . and with a desire to save them before they go extinct through deforestation.  Part of the idea is to help the local population by urging them to grow more of the helpful plants to sell and make money to live. The other part of the plant is to bring samples back to grow them here and start research that could lead to medicines.

Here are some of the plant discoveries he told me about:

Curare -- This is a vine that contains a chemical that paralyzes muscles temporarily. Natives used this as a "poison" to put on their arrows, so that an animal they hit would be instantly paralyzed.  The good usage of this chemical has come to be in surgery . . . by relaxing  the muscles of the patient, surgery can begin.

Ginger -- This food shows promise in preventing morning sickness, motion sickness and other cases of nausea.  Ginger tea is also helpful in treating a cold and sore throat.

Turmeric -- This is the curry spice used quite often in Indian & Morrocan foods. Preliminary studies indicate this spice might help prevent Alzheimers disease and even cancer in some cases.  Interestingly, in India where people consume a lot of turmeric in foods, Alzheimers disease is practically non-existent.

Cocoa -- The fruit of the cocoa tree is the source of chocolate. Chocolate has been shown to have antidepressant properties . . . especially the natural dark (not milk) chocolate.

So these are just a few and the research goes on!  Pretty interesting, huh?

And St. Louis is the leader in this research!  You can see all these plants in the Climatron and the Missouri Botanical Garden on any visit!

Best to all,

Janis