Natural medicines

In 1994 my husband and I spent 4 months traveling in South America and were ‘blown away’ by the cultural diversity and the never-ending species of plants we encountered that were used by them as natural medicines.

We started off in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru where we visited many amazing Inca sites and incidentally learned that their medical practices were extremely advanced. Continuing south, we flew into Bolivia. After landing on a barren windy plan, we descended by bus into the huge ancient crater that took us into the heart of the busy city of Le Paz whose streets thronged with stocky women with their voluminous skirts and bowler hats.

The picture shows the stalls with their local medicines and herbs being sold and because of my interest, learned of a specific case where a Bolivian ‘medicine man’ saved the lives of many men when the Panama Canal was being built.

We learned more when we were the shores of their sacred Lake Titicaca. There, a center had grown up around the building of the reed boats that sailed its waters. There were reed huts for the workers and we were invited to visit one of them where a very old medicine man who spoke English, welcomed visitors. We sat on reed mats and as he smoked in the dim light of his small fire he told us the story.

As a young man in his teens he had been chosen by his grandfather to be the one he would pass on his knowledge of how and where to gather medicines so that when he died, he could take over as his tribe’s medicine man, or curanderos. To that end the two set out for a year traveling north through the jungles and mountains collecting plants, tree barks and minerals while he was taught their use and dosages. They eventually reached Panama where they soon learned that so many men were dying from malaria that the whole project was in immanent danger of being abandoned.

He and his grandfather had collected the bark of the cinchona tree that contained quinine and that remedy was so effective, the men were able to recover and were able to complete the canal in 1914.

In the chemistry department of my university, a whole section was devoted to natural products research where students were taught to separate all the compounds in a substance used as a natural medicine and characterizes the active ingredient that they could then synthesize in the lab and the drug companies could produce and sell. For instance the bark of the willow tree contains acetylsalicylic acid that’s sold to you as aspirin.

I have a tendency to trust herbal medicines and those drugs I’ve learned come from natural products and one of my experiences in China may appear as one of these posts soon. Rie

Natural medicines

In 1994 my husband and I spent 4 months traveling in South America and were ‘blown away’ by the cultural diversity and the never-ending species of plants we encountered that were used by them as natural medicines.

We started off in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru where we visited many amazing Inca sites and incidentally learned that their medical practices were extremely advanced. Continuing south, we flew into Bolivia and after landing on a barren windy plain, we descended by bus into the huge ancient crater that took us into the heart of the busy city of Le Paz whose streets thronged with stocky women with their voluminous skirts and bowler hats. The picture shows the stalls with their local medicines and herbs being sold. Because of my interest, we learned of a specific case where a Bolivian ‘medicine man’ had saved the lives of many men when the Panama Canal was being built.

We got the whole story when we were on the shores of their sacred Lake Titicaca. There, a center had grown up around the building of reed boats that sailed its waters. There were also reed huts for the workers and we were invited to visit one of them where a very old medicine man who spoke English, welcomed visitors. We sat on reed mats and as he smoked in the dim light of his small fire and told us the story.

As a young man in his teens he had been chosen by his grandfather to be the one special one for him to pass on his knowledge of how and where to gather medicines so that when he died, the young man could take over as the tribe’s medicine man. To that end the two set out for a year traveling north through the jungles and mountains collecting plants, tree barks and minerals while he was taught their use and dosages.

They eventually reached Panama where they soon learned that so many men were dying from malaria that the whole project was in immanent danger of being abandoned. He and his grandfather had collected the bark of the cinchona tree that contained quinine and that remedy was so effective, the men were able to recover and complete the construction of the canal in 1914.

In the chemistry department of my university, a whole section was devoted to natural products research where students were taught to separate all the compounds in a substance used as a natural medicine and to characterize the active ingredient, which they could then synthesize in the lab and help the drug companies to produce. Interesting that the bark of the willow tree contains acetylsalicylic acid that’s sold to you as the very familiar drug aspirin.

I have a tendency to trust herbal medicines and other drugs I’ve learned come from natural products and one of my experiences in China may appear in one of these posts soon. Rie

Seville Oranges

We visited Spain in the ‘70’s, rented a car and explored that fascinating country. I especially remember Seville in the south not just because it is a beautiful Moorish city but its avenues and the central square were full of orange trees. It was October, the oranges were ripe and so plentiful we picked one, peeled it with difficulty, bit into the juicy flesh with gusto only to recoil in disgust because they were so bitter and sour they were frankly inedible. We wondered why they would ever have been planted there and it turned out to be an interesting story.

Oranges had first been imported from China as early as 100 BC because sailors used to become very ill with the dreaded scurvy when they ran out of fresh fruits and vegetables at sea. Some even died because of the lack of Vitamin C the fresh produce provided in their diet.

The Captains of very early European trading ships solved this problem by planting citrus trees - oranges, lemons & limes that are full of Vitamin C- in many of the ports along their trading routes. Citrous trees are killed by frost so Seville is about as far north as they would grow in Europe. It took sweet oranges and other varieties much longer to migrate than the Seville oranges because they are not so hardy.

At one time the seafaring British who sailed the world helped solve the scurvy problem by importing Seville oranges and making a concoction of the orange peel and juice stewed up with lots of sugar. They gave it the name Marmalade and I always figured that name was derived from the French ‘mer malade’ [sea sickness] so I was a bit disappointed when I read it actually comes from the Portugese word ‘marmelo’ meaning quince jam.

The British sailors were given marmalade on their toast and to flavour deserts etc. and soon got a taste for the caramelized bitter flavour. Before marmalade, sauerkraut and portable soup that contain Vitamin C were the remedies used by famous long distance sailors like Captain Cook - I might add, much to the distaste of their crew. During the 19th Century to prevent scurvy sailors were given limes that were easy for them to obtain from their Caribbean island colonies - hence the name 'Limeys', first for British sailors and now for the British themselves.

Many animals like cats, dogs and even the lowly rat can produce Vitamin C in their own bodies and you probably can expect a post from me one week explaining why and extolling the many virtues of vitamin C. Rie

Amazing Water

When I was growing up in the 1930’s, all cows were inspected for disease and if they were healthy, farmers just milked them, poured the milk into glass bottles, put caps on them and delivered the bottles to door-steps every morning. I very clearly remember when I was sent out to bring in our bottles of milk in the winter, I often found that the milk had frozen and had sprouted an amazing column of frozen cream on top [no homogenizing those days].

It was only much later that I finally began to really appreciate what a unique property it was that water expands when it freezes and I got that nice jolt of pleasure when I understood why. Imagine some of the implication if water didn't expand and float! Rivers and lakes in colder regions would freeze from the bottom up and and all the marine life where that happened would be frozen solid.

Water's uncommon behaviour is the result of the way the hydrogen atoms are lopsidedly attached to an oxygen atom to form a water molecule, H₂O. [Shown are both different ways the molecule is usually represented]. Notice the positive[+] and negative[-] charges around the molecule. These charges make the molecules tend to stick together [negative and positive attract like the poles on little magnets].

Molecules are always on the move and, at higher temperatures, they move faster and tend to mostly bounce off one another without sticking. However, as the temperature goes down, they slow down, stick to each other more and the water gets closer packed and denser so it shrinks. That happens to all materials but something pretty unusual happens to cold water at 4 degrees C [39^oF]. At that temperature the water molecules are moving so slowly they start sticking together and connecting to form an open hexagonal pattern that spreads them apart making the water expand. The video representation is supposed to represent water cooling until it forms the open hexagons.

In 3D the pattern is more like a honeycomb and you can easily see why it would float. Warm up the ice, molecules move faster, the weak attractions between them break and the whole structure collapses to liquid water again.

If you have read this far and are interested in things like this, maybe you should have been a scientist – nature can be endlessly fascinating especially at the molecular level. Rie

Them Decisions

It’s summer, we have visitors and having to make a decision on what I’d write about this week I thought I’d lighten up on this post and tell you one of my father’s stories. I guess they were supposed to be jokes but they always had a point.

It’s about this farmer who hired a man for a few days to help him with all the chores that had accumulated during a busy summer. The man was a pleasant surprise; he was willing, handy and used his head so he seemed to get everything done so quickly that the farmer ran out of chores for him to do when he had one whole working day left.

Finally he had the bright idea of taking the man to the half underground potato house where he had stored his winter supply of spuds and said ‘This should be a restful day for you after all your hard work. All I want you to do with the potatoes left in there is to sort them into 3 piles – the good ones, the ones that need to be eaten right away and the rotten ones to throw out’.

When the farmer came back at the end of the day he found the man sitting there with only a few potatoes in each pile. When he asked him what happened, his worker drawled; ‘Well you see Mister - I don’t mind no real work but it’s them decisions that’s so hard to make.’ Rie