Gitksan medicinal plants--cultural choice and efficacy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The use of plants for healing by any cultural group is integrally related to local concepts of the nature of disease, the nature of plants, and the world view of the culture. The physical and chemical properties of the plants themselves also bear on their selection by people for medicines, as does the array of plants available for people to choose from. I examine use of medicinal plants from a "biobehavioral" perspective to illuminate cultural selection of plants used for medicine by the Gitksan of northwestern British Columbia, Canada.

Methods

Consultant consensus, "intercultural consensus", independent use of the same plants by other cultural groups, and phytochemistry and bioassay results from the literature, were employed in analysis of probable empirical effi

SUBMITTER: Johnson LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1564001 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature