Waters writes: "Mention 'medicinal plants' and you're likely to conjure up images of folk doctors wielding salves and tinctures, practicing something more akin to witchcraft than science. But surveying cancer treatments alone, it's outstanding how many of the compounds we used today were initially discovered in plants."
Indeed, medicinal plants always remind me of the folk doctors known as "arbolario" upon whom the poor people in a remote village where I grew up depended so much for the treatment of almost all kinds of ailments, from fever to possession by spirits.
I was among the few youngsters in the village called Ginablan who had gone to high school in town about 12 kilometers away. With a little exposure to science, I had developed a disdain towards those arbolarios and joined the chorus of the so-called educated people, particularly those in town, that they were quack doctors.
Although herbs were the common medicine to treat illnesses then, I would prefer my kin preparing the medicinal mix grounded on mortar and then wrapped on a piece of cloth that would be placed on the forehead or any parts of the body. I just did not have faith in folk doctors, some of whom chewed the herbs and placed the chewed stuff on one's anatomy.
When I went on a vacation to Romblon from Manila where I pursued a course in journalism years later, I became aware of the arbolarios once again when a bizarre news broke out in town about several high school students being "possessed" by evil spirits. The alleged possession came one after the other with the school principal the last to be "possessed".
The parents brought the children to legitimate doctors who recommended that they be taken to a mental hospital in Manila. The parents opted to have their children treated by an arbolario, who cured the kids. One of those "possessed", a top student whom I happened to know, later became a bank executive in Manila with no apparent trace of any mental disorder at all.
The principal, who was said to be our distant relative, was healed just as well.
Tales about fairies known as engkantos and other denizens of the netherworld were part of the rich folklore in Romblon. My cousins, with whom I lived after my father's death when I was 13, told me that they once saw fairies astride beautiful horses passing by our backyard where big trees abound. Having been raised in a city before my father's death, I didn't buy the story, although I often felt goose pimples whenever I passed by eerie woods when grazing our four carabaos - farm animals used for plowing rice fields - on lonely hills.
It was about four decades ago when that possession story in Romblon happened. I haven't gone back to Romblon for more than 30 years and have no way of knowing if the arbolarios are still there practicing their trade. But looking back, I am still amazed at how an arbolario had cured the "possessed" with herbs and — I suppose - a little incantation.
Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places
Author's note:
The Scientist magazine says the exhibition "Green Currency" opens on April 20 and runs through July 31 at The New York Botanical Garden on the Bronx River Parkway and features 43 works by artists from the American Society of Botanical Artists.
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