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TL;DR
Semi-structured interviews with 20 Cashinahua traditional healers and midwives over 11 months documented 467 medicinal plant taxa, with 79 species identified as unreported or rarely cited for medicinal use or phytochemical analysis.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine · 7 authors, 4 centres
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Semi-structured interviews with 20 Cashinahua traditional healers and midwives over 11 months documented 467 medicinal plant taxa, with 79 species identified as unreported or rarely cited for medicinal use or phytochemical analysis.
This ethnobotanical survey was conducted between November 2010 and June 2015 in five Cashinahua communities along the upper Curanja River in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 traditional healers and 10 midwives, recording vernacular names, ethnomedicinal uses, plant parts used, and forms of preparation and administration. A total of 467 plant taxa were documented across 99 botanical families, with Acanthaceae, Piperaceae, and Rubiaceae being the most represented. Among 79 species selected as unreported or rarely cited in published pharmacological and phytochemical literature, pregnancy and birth disorders constituted the most frequent therapeutic category, followed by envenomation, infections, and infestations. The authors suggest the documented species with no prior pharmacological records represent candidates for future biomedical investigation.