The People's Panacea

A blog about the ancient partnership between people and plants. How plants have empowered individuals to heal themselves, nurture their communities, and cultivate their own journeys to wholeness.

[peoplespanacea]

I think these are blackberries but I'm afraid to eat them because we have been conditioned to think that the only safe foods come from grocery stores. Less than a generation ago, people foraged and ate freely with little concern. Today, our entire relationship with food is facilitated via big agriculture and mediated via food media. It is hard to believe that this relationship is a healthy one.

[peoplespanacea]

Glyphosate

Glyphosate is an herbicide used to kill plants and weeds and a variety of other things. It's called a nonselective herbicide, which means that it kills most plants and stops plants from making certain types of proteins that enable them to grow. 

Although it has been used in the U.S. since 1974 and is one of the nation’s most popular herbicides, the active ingredients have been described as cancer causing by the the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

[peoplespanacea]

Marigold (Calendula officinalis)

I tasted flower petals today. People have been using the flower for a very long time to treat colitis, skin issues, wounds, and for a variety of other ailments. I can't say that the taste is particularly appealing but its isn't bad either. It tastes like what you would expect for a flower.

[peoplespanacea]

Native Medicinal Plants in Georgia

In the state of Georgia, I am working on planting more native medicinal plants in the garden. Some of the most common include echinacea, goldenseal, black cohosh, yarrow, elderberry, and sassafras.

Echinacea (Coneflower): Known for boosting the immune system and treating colds. I planted a lot this year. It takes a long time to germinate and I already killed some due to my negligence to water

Goldenseal: Used for its antibacterial properties and to aid digestion.

Black Cohosh: Commonly used to alleviate menopausal symptoms. I have no experience with this plant. I plant to start of using this as an ornamental ground cover in the front yard.

Yarrow: Effective for wound healing and reducing inflammation. I will plant this as a background ornamental.

Elderberry: Popular for its antiviral properties and immune support.

Sassafras: The leaves of this tree were traditionally used for its anti-inflammatory and diuretic effects. I love the taste of this tea but it is a known carcinogen so I recommend against using it.

Out of all the plants mentioned above, I am most excited about goldenseal (pictured above). I have a lot of nostalgia about that drink from my childhood. I was served goldenseal to address every ailment from colds to eczema and learned to appreciate its bitter taste, tamped down by honey.

[peoplespanacea]

Midwifery Reveals How African Herbal Knowledge Was Preserved and Evolved Under American Slavery

It is a popular misconception that slaves had no skills and knowledge and were saved from themselves by Euro-American advanced ideas. The recorded interview of an Alabama midwife, Lucretia Perryman, demonstrates that enslaved Africans preserved knowledge about traditional marriage but also increased and incorporated new knowledge about healing and herbalism into their corpus while enslaved in ways that their captors never fully understood.

According to Laurie Wilkie:

gossypium herbaceum root

apocynum cannabinum

[peoplespanacea]

Consumed by Consumption

Tuberculosis was often called the consumption.  It was a disease that was characterized by a slow process of death and characterized by a wasting away.  Victims became very thin as muscle tissue wasted away.  A hacking cough, rattled the chest and painted handkerchiefs with blood and sputum.  The death as called gentle by some and cruel by others.

The disease consumed the flesh but also was a metaphor for the excesses of the Gilded Age  (1870s - 1900) and the conspicuous consumption that characterized American habits.  Thornstein Veblen, a second generation Norwegian-American from Wisconsin, wrote of the excesses in an 1899 essay entitled, Theory of the Leisure Class.  He wrote, “The need of conspicuous waste... stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods.”

Katherine Byrne has written about how the disease seized the Victorian imagination. She writes of Charles Dickens’s depiction of the disease in Dombey and Son. In the novel, Byrne argues that Dickens signifies the nature of tuberculosis to disrupt and destroy the industrial and ethic world. Dickens writes of how Paul Dombey’s angelic nature contrasted by the a pathological force of a disease accentuated and possibly produced by the abuses of industrial capitalism.  Similarly in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, Bryne argues that the novelist argued phtisis was caused by the lower classes’ working conditions in poorly ventilated factories and is simultaneously associated with the consumption of luxury goods.

While many poor victims didn’t have “time to die,” the disease often teased the leisure class by the cruelty of a final period known as “spes phthisica.” This was a period where those inflicted enjoyed a surge of energy and creativity before succumbing to death.

[peoplespanacea]

The Devil's Laboratory: A Series

In this series I am going to explore some of the reasons that people have become increasingly alienated and left out of discussions about their own healing and healing histories. I am approaching this series in the first person of a "devil in the laboratory" as to simply the fundamental problems of access and empowerment of the masses through diverse methods and approaches to knowledge.

First create a highly technical language that excludes most people from the conversation about their own knowledge and intellectual histories.

Publish extensively that there is no evidence contrary to your limited exploration and assumptions.

Force people to adopt your language and thinking patterns to decribe their own knowledge systems and then omit their methods of knowing or describing phenomena that are uninteresting to you or difficult for you to comprehend.

Suppress the spread of knowledge systems and tradtions that challenge your conclusions by de-prioritizing new research.

Ridicule alternative practice as witchcraft or superstition.

When people demonstrate abilities or knowldege contrary to your hypothesis or when evidence of effectiveness becomes undeniable, revise your hypothesis without acknowledging the initial error that led to systemic omissions.

[peoplespanacea]

I came across this little guy and a whole bunch of his pals in the garden. The name of this plant is Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium Purpurem). It is actually not a true stinging nettle but a member of the mint family, identifiable by its square stems.

Before you pull this guy up, you should know that it has a lot of medicinal value and is completely edible. It's very high in vitamins A and C as well as iron and antioxidants. You can apply the leaves directly to wounds or can make a tea of the leaves and flowers for a slight antihistamine benefit during allergy season.

Don't confuse it with other similar looking plants like hen bit, red clover, or stinging nettle. These other similar looking plants have different leaf shapes and don't have a square stem with purple flowers.

I'll make another post with some of the purple dead nettle prepared for a tea concoction and in a salad.

[peoplespanacea]

Sweet Potato Leaf

One of the most amazing plants is the sweet potato. It is an amazing plant that is good for soil and good for health. George Washington Carver's work with the peanut often overshadows the sweet potato but this plant deserves much more attention. In the US, there is a tradition of refering to sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) with moist flesh as "yams" while in Africa the term is reserved for those with drier flesh. Importantly, sweet potatoes and true yams are botanically different. Yams are grown for their tubers, originate from West Africa, and are from an entirely different plant family (Dioscoreaceae) than sweet potatoes (Convolvulaceae) that originate in the Americas. Before slavery, enslaved persons ate yams (Dioscoreaceae). During slavery also ate yams (Convolvulaceae) and prepared the yams in similar ways as they had done in Africa. It is likely that enslaved persons encountered the sweet potato in the Americas and brought it with them when they returned to Africa via Sierra Leone. There in Africa, it emerged with other culinary traditions as part of a new creole cuisine. Sierra Leoneons eat plasas, a variety of green sauces that are made from leafy plants. Specifically, the sweet potato sauce made from “petehteh leaf" as it is known across Sierra Leone.

While in Sierra Leone, there is a tradition of eating the sweet potato leaf. In the United States, there was both a culinary and cultural bias against cooking and eating these greens as they were associated with slaves but is important to think about the evolution of this crop before slavery and its role in sustaining cultural heritage foodways during and after the emancipation era. Importantly, the leaves of plants in the Solanaceae family, including potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, chillis and eggplants should not be eaten because the leaves contain high concentrations of a compound called solanine. Sweet potato leaves do not contain solanine, as sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are in the morning glory family and are not related to nightshade plants (Solanaceae), which produce solanine.

Sweet potato leaf contains over 250% DV of Vitamin K, significant potassium, iron, fiber, and antioxidant vitamins B3 and B5 in every 100g. They help manage blood sugar, support heart health, and act as a potent source of dietary antioxidants to fight oxidative stress. The sweet potato is a crop that you should think about growing in your own garden and cooking in your kitchen.

[peoplespanacea]

The Strangling Angel

Diptheria is caused by a bacteria that invades the lining of the respiratory system. It creates a silvery blockage on the tongue and throat that makes it difficult to breath and slowly suffocates those who are infected, which was why it was referred to as the "strangling angel."

Prior to an efffective vaccine developed by Alexander Thomas Glenny and Gaston Ramon (pictured ot the right), the disease claimed the lives of more than 50% of those who became infected. Even after modern treatments have been adopted today, one of nine persons who are infected by diptheria die.

Gaston Ramon (1886-1963) was a French veterinarian that expanded the role of adjuvants. In developing vaccinations for horses infected by diptheria, he found that the immunization would be more effective if there was an immune response at the site of the shot. This reaction seemed to alert the immune system and help the enhance the immune response. This innovation made vaccines more efficient and effective. In addition to diptheria discoveries, Ramon became the world record holder for the most Nobel prize nominations (155), without ever winning one.

[peoplespanacea]

The People Against Sickle Cell Anemia

In the 1970s, the Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia was formed in response to historical marginalization of persons suffering from the disease. The Black Panthers had highlighted the neglect of persons with the disease throught the establishment of community clinics during the 1960s, through screening programs and innovative grassroots research initiatives.

In part due to the efforts of these organizations and advances in community-based initiatives, legislators began to consider a national appraoch to this disease from the federal government through the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act of 1972, which had authorized $115 million over three fiscal years to combat the disease through research and established comprehensive centers across the country.

Grady Hospital established a sickle cell unit in 1984 under the leadership of Dr. James Eckman. Eckman was the Medical Director of the world's first 24-hour comprehensive acute care sickle cell center which he helped establish after intensive state lobbying for funding.

The Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Grady Health System was the world’s first 24-hour comprehensive primary care clinic for adult patients with sickle cell. Today, thousands of persons have benefited from this unit and dedicated care.

[peoplespanacea]

Plants as Basis for Magic

Been reading Plants, People, and Culture by Balick and Cox... Found the summary of the experiment by Johannes Baptista van Helmont interesting.

I never really thought about how plants grow and never considered that they don't "eat" soil but largely rely on photosynthesis to recombine carbon atoms from carbon dioxide into hexose sugars. Helmont's experiment growing a 5-lb willow in 200 pounds of sugar confirmed that after five years, the plant only 'ate' 2 ounces of soil thought it weighed 169 lbs.

The magic is that plants create things out of thin air! Well, not exactly but that is still pretty amazing when you think about it.

This was a flawed experiment that introduced some important conclusions that are still relevant today.

[peoplespanacea]

In this 1978 essay, Susan Sontag argues against the use of illness as methapors. She makes comparisons between tuberculosis, cancer, syphillis and other dissease to exmine how people made meaning about illness and our "dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick," a rite of passage we must all endure.

The John Birch Society, an extreme right-wing political group, was the primary organizer of the laetrile movement for the treatment of cancer. Despite the claims made, research scientists failed to identify any life-saving effect of the drug in the treatment of cancer in human and animal trials. Still, Dr. John A. Richardson and others insisted that the federal government was involved in overreach and denying the usefulness of the drug.

[peoplespanacea]

Tuberculosis and the Tribes

During the early tuberculosis outbreak in the late 19th century, there was a concerted marketing campaign to get wealthy white folk who suffered from the disease to relocate to the Southwest. The Southwest was marketed as a place where they could get dry arid air that would help them rehabilitate from the disease. These campaigns served a dual purpose, first to attract whites to move to the territory so that they could more aggressively campaign for statehood.

According to Chasing the Cure in New Mexico: Tuberculosis and the Quest for Health, boosters from the territory promoted the myth that native and indigenous populations were immune to the disease as proof of the benefits of the region. Tragedy pursued as thousands of TB-infected white Americans relocated to New Mexico seeking the benefits of a healthy environment and brought the disease with them. Almost immediately they began to infect the native populations living there. Without an adequate public health infrastructure, the indigenous populations saw increased infections and death rates.

In the 20th century, native American populations confronted a growing disregard for declining conditions among native Americans infected by the disease. Some white Christians pointed to the lack of moral and ethical standards, an underdeveloped work ethic, and sexual promiscuity as the source of the disproportionate infections among native Americans. Deep prejudices about the nature of medical support and those deserving of it, shaped the lack of a targeted medical response to address such a devastating disparity among the tribes.

In 1953 on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. A group of brave indigenous women came together to collectively seek a way to heal their own people. The Lakota Tuberculosis and Health Association was founded by four Lakota grandmothers—Phoebe Downing, Eunice Larrabee, Alfreda Janis Bergin, and Irene Groneau—to combat a tuberculosis outbreak among the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. This grassroots, indigenous-led initiative addressed TB, mental health, and alcoholism, contributing to the development of community and heritage based programs to address health disparities.

[peoplespanacea]

Cholera Can Kill

Cholera could enter the digestive system of a health person in the morning and by the evening of that same day, that same person could be carted away for burial. The US dealt with major outbreaks of the disease in 1832, 1849, and 1866. Immediate treatment is crucial because cholera can cause death but much of the treatment in 1832 focused on sermons and moralizing about a lack of work ethic combined with some traditional purgatives that made the condition worse. Modern treatment includes antibiotics, zinc supplementation, and rehydration.

[peoplespanacea]

I'm a little pissed that I can't seem to satisfy this chamomile in an egg carton. I have these sitting in a window sill and water them once every 2 days. They keep trying out and it looks like only one of the sprouts is going to survive.

If I were going to do this again, I wouldn't do it in egg carton. On the other hand, I don't know what a good solution would be. They need a lot of sun and these seeds seem very fragile.

[peoplespanacea]

Reading Mukherjee’s Emperor of All Maladies, and a passage about Dr. Farber’s work with antifolates.

Farber used a synthetic antifolate (aminopterin) to starve cancer cells of the folate they need to divide. It was the first real proof that chemicals could induce remission in children with leukemia. Even though the cancer often came back, it opened the door for modern chemotherapy.

What struck me, though, is the parallel to the natural world. There are plants that produce compounds with a remarkably similar effect—they can disrupt cell production, acting as nature's own defense mechanism.

Here are some plants that exhibit this "antifolate" behavior:

· Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis): Produces a compound called EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) . Research confirms EGCG is a natural inhibitor of DHFR, the exact enzyme targeted by aminopterin . This may contribute to tea's anticancer effects.

· Caralluma (Caralluma sinaica): This folk medicine plant shows strong inhibitory activity against the DHFR enzyme, suggesting its traditional use may involve a mechanism similar to modern antifolate drugs.

· Common Sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus): Extracts from this plant have also been identified as being "strongly inhibitory to DHFR" in scientific studies .

It makes you realize that the "discovery" of these treatments is often a re-discovery. We’re just catching up to what plants have been doing all along. It really makes me want to learn more about the ethnobotany of cancer treatments. How many "aminopterins" are we walking past ? We need so much more research into the effectiveness of these plants.