Dr. Michael Balick

Yesterday we were given the opportunity to view a presentation by Ethnobotanist Dr. Michael Balick from the New York Botanical Garden. The presentation was fascinating and gave insight into this weeks PBL. Balick's presentation was mostly on his time spent in Belize, researching traditional ways of healing and trying to preserve them. Here are some key points I wrote down during the presentation: 

Dr. Michael Balick ,  The New York Botanical Garden

Key points: 

• Habitat conversion threatening ethnomedicine
• Languages on earth are disappearing
• Devolution “with modernization, it may be that knowledge about living things is decreasing opposed to increasing”
• Salvage ethnobotany, working with elders that may not have an apprentice. Working with young people to keep the practice.
• Belize: inventory, ethnobotanical studies:
• Baths in leaves of the Piper family (cleans pores, refreshes skin)
• Neurolaena Lobata – used to fight intestinal parasites, preventing malaria
• Aristolochia grandiflora – used as a tonic. Chopped stem in rum. Used for hangover.
• Metopium Brownei – gives severe rash that spreads throughout the body.
• Bursera Simaruba – creamy liquid in bark, heals the rash, and other skin problems. 
• Terra Nova – Medical Plant Reserve in Belize
• Bush medicine camp: children at risk come to the forrest and work with traditional healers. 
• Intellectual property rights: Convention of Biological Diversity.
• Respect for : self, environment, culture. 

The information given in the presentation was very useful for this week. During the presentation we learned how world globalization is destroying old practices of medicine within Belize. The presentation focused on Belize but this can be seen all over the world. We learned about some of the plant uses in Belize that many people outside the culture may not know about. The fear is that the knowledge of these plant uses is being lost within the culture as well. The uses discovered by the indigenous people of this region could be very helpful for preventing disease inside and outside the region. If the old methods are lost, the knowledge is lost as well and we could be losing something very useful. As we learn about other cultures views of disease systems, it may seem strange and not based off of fact, but these methods have important healing potential that perhaps cannot be understood from a biomedical view. It is also very important that the knowledge of how other cultures view disease is not lost so that we can better understand how to help treat diseases in foreign areas. For example: curing Aids in Africa will be nearly impossible if we cannot understand how African cultures view Aids.