Category:Native American herbs: Difference between revisions

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Native American plant medicines have contributed disproportionately to the modern Western pharmacopoeia. '''[[wikipedia:Quinine|Cinchona]]''' bark for malaria entered European medicine through Quechua use in seventeenth-century Peru; '''[[wikipedia:Cocaine|coca]]''' (''Erythroxylum coca''), '''[[wikipedia:Tobacco|tobacco]]''' (''Nicotiana'' species), '''[[wikipedia:Cacao|cacao]]''' (''Theobroma cacao''), '''[[wikipedia:Capsicum|chili pepper]]''' (''Capsicum'' species), and many other foundational medicinal-and-food plants were Native American medicines transferred to global use. '''[[wikipedia:Curare|Curare]]''' from ''Strychnos toxifera'' was the basis of modern neuromuscular-blocking pharmacology. '''[[wikipedia:Witch hazel|Witch hazel]]''' (''Hamamelis virginiana'') entered the Western pharmacopoeia through Mohegan and Iroquois use. '''[[wikipedia:Lobelia inflata|Lobelia]]''' entered through the same route. '''[[wikipedia:Echinacea|Echinacea]]''' was a Plains-tribe medicine before its Eclectic-era and modern adoption. '''[[wikipedia:Slippery elm|Slippery elm]]''' (''Ulmus rubra''), '''[[wikipedia:Black cohosh|black cohosh]]''' (''Actaea racemosa''), '''[[wikipedia:Bloodroot|bloodroot]]''' (''Sanguinaria canadensis''), '''[[wikipedia:Goldenseal|goldenseal]]''' (''Hydrastis canadensis''), and many others crossed from Native American medical use into the American Eclectic tradition and from there into modern Western herbal practice.

The contemporary clinical and ethical considerations around Native American herbs are substantial. The conservation status of several traditional medicinal plants is precarious (the United Plant Savers At-Risk list, established in the 1990s, was developed in substantial part to address overharvest of Native American medicinal plants — goldenseal, black cohosh, slippery elm, and American ginseng are among the At-Risk species). The ethical question of cultural appropriation and benefit-sharing is active, with the Convention on Biological Diversity's Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing (2010) and various national-level legal frameworks attempting to address the historical extraction of Indigenous medical knowledge without compensation or community consent. Many of the traditional ceremonial-medicine uses (peyote in the Native American Church, ayahuasca in the syncretic Brazilian churches, several others) are now restricted under controlled-substance regimes that have produced complex legal-religious accommodations.

The contemporary clinical and ethical considerations around Native American herbs are substantial. The conservation status of several traditional medicinal plants is precarious (the United Plant Savers At-Risk list, established in the 1990s, was developed in substantial part to address overharvest of Native American medicinal plants such as goldenseal, black cohosh, slippery elm, and American ginseng are among the At-Risk species). The ethical question of cultural appropriation and benefit-sharing is active, with the Convention on Biological Diversity's Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing (2010) and various national-level legal frameworks attempting to address the historical extraction of Indigenous medical knowledge without compensation or community consent. Many of the traditional ceremonial-medicine uses (peyote in the Native American Church, ayahuasca in the syncretic Brazilian churches, several others) are now restricted under controlled-substance regimes that have produced complex legal-religious accommodations.

== Herbs indexed ==

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