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Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu)
12 Aug 1996 16:38:02 -0600
In article <woody-0608960051200001@192.0.2.1>, woody@alumni.caltech.edu (William Edward Woody) writes:
pciszek@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
>>> >4. the identification of medicinal alkaloids in plant tissues
>>>
>>> Healers have been using them for millenia, but western medicine
>>> doesn't want you to know that.
This was meant, if I recall, in jest. But it occurs to me that on this
strange planet of sci.anthropology, it will likely be taken seriously by
some and become widely quoted as evidence of medicine's evil doings. So a
nit: Nearly 50% of the prescription drugs available to North Americans are or
were originally derived from plants, and a good proportion of those were
known for some medicinal application before Western Medicine found them
useful. Nobody in "Western Medicine" is trying to keep that secret, of
course (I found these facts in pharmacology journals). There's no
conspiracy of silence amongst ethnobotanists. :)
Bryant
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