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Shaman in Brazil
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MEDICINAL PLANT KNOWLEDGE OF NATIVE PEOPLE
One of the most exciting areas of research in tropical forests is ethnobotany which is the study of how people use native plants to treat illness and disease. Forest people have an incredible knowledge of medicinal plants with remedies for everything from snake bites to tumors.
To date many of the prescription drugs used in the western world have been derived from plants and 70% of the plants identified as having anti-cancer characteristics by the US National Cancer Institute are found only in the tropical rainforest.
Typically knowledge of medicinal plants is carried by the shaman or "medicine man" of a village. The shaman treats the sick often during elaborate ceremonies and rituals using plants gathered from the surrounding forest.
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