The Secretariat of Native Peoples and Neighborhoods and Resident Indigenous Communities (SEPI) defines traditional indigenous medicine as the set of therapeutic practices traditional ones carried out by indigenous or traditional doctors in which plants, fungi, animals, or derivatives of these, and medicinal minerals accompanied by prayers, prayers and prayers are used as main elements to alleviate the diseases of different conditions that arise.
For Celina Martínez Vidal, traditional doctor endorsed by the SEPI, indigenous ancestral medicine is synonymous with family“I have always said that traditional medicine is in my blood, Everything I have learned has been through my mother and she through her father, that is, my grandfather.“. Since 2010, in the Temazcales Rancho Cazahuate, she has been providing alternative medicine therapies to the people of her community: “I have a degree in Tourism, but following the signs, I decide to embark on a journey towards my center and return to my roots. Reconnecting with the energy of the mountains gave a radical change to my existence; So I stopped thinking about material things and learned the language of Temazcal and that was how I began a path back to the essence of my being. I began to let myself be carried away by my mother, I let her be the one to teach me, let her be the one to guide me, let her be the one to bring out my inner gift. This is how I began to dedicate myself to traditional medicine,” Celina tells us.
A wide variety of remedies prepared by traditional medicine are still available in any town or city in Mexico.iStock.
But from the point of view of medical surgeon from UNAM and eminence of Family Medicine in Mexico, Dr. Juan José Mazón Ramírez, traditional medicine is the sum of ancestral knowledge, skills and practices based on indigenous experiences: “The best known in traditional medicine is the use of a large number of herbs or medicinal plants that have been recorded for hundreds of years, but it also has alternative therapies such as temazcal, manteadas, massages, etc.,” explains Dr. Mazón.
For her part, the traditional doctor Martínez Vidal She has extensive experience in alternative therapies, with a special strength in maternity, where she works with polycystic ovaries, herbal infusions to increase breast milk, baby bumps or closed hips.“an ancient therapy that is used for the postpartum, it can be immediate or months after having had the baby and serves to physically and emotionally close the experience of bringing a living being into the world. It is done with one or several shawls placed in different parts of the body and, little by little, the body is tightened with them to accommodate bones and tissues after pregnancy and childbirth.“explains Vidal.
When traditional and modern medicine meet
At first glance, traditional medicine and modern medicine might seem like therapies with parallel paths that never meet; But the reality is different, they intersect to feed each other. And there is evidence that some practices and remedies from ancient Mexican medicine are used in modern medicine. “A prominent example is the lower Mixteca area, where medicinal herbs can be found, such as calea zacatechichi. This plant is used for stomach pain and, according to recent studies carried out by the National University, It can also be used in the treatment of inflammatory conditions.”, comments doctor Celina Martínez.
Another case is the use of willow, whose bark was used by several indigenous peoples to relieve pain and fever. Willow bark contains salicin, which is the basis for the creation of acetylsalicylic acid, better known as aspirin.“Infusions of an herb called broom or avocado seed are used to relieve knee pain. The latter has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties in a laboratory study carried out by researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the United States.”, explains the traditional doctor.
Traditional medicine is based on the use of a large number of medicinal herbs or plants for hundreds of years.ASC
Besides, Many indigenous medicine practices related to the use of medicinal herbs and plants are being studied by the medical community to better understand their properties and possible applications in modern treatments. “The Ministry of health has investigated how guava leaf can help treat both inflamed colon and menstrual cramps,” says Dr. Mazón.
The first records about traditional medicine in Mexico
Traditional indigenous medicine has a very interesting and abundant history, but it can be summarized in four important milestones. “We could start with Hernán Cortés, who wrote five letters addressed to Charles V, and in the second letter, dated 1520, he describes the streets of Tenochtitlan full of herbalists where there are roots and medicinal herbs; He also points out that there are houses very similar to those of apothecaries where oral medicines as well as ointments and plasters are sold,” comments Mexican surgeon Juan José Mazón.
Secondly, the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, The general history of things in New Spainwhich is composed of 12 books, and in the tenth he stops to talk about medicine, “It is very interesting because it is there where he talks about diseases, defines the doctors in the area and also talks about the apothecaries. But chapter 28 is titled: ‘Diseases of the human body and the medicines against them’, and here Father Sahagún concentrates typologies of diseases in the head, eyes, ears, teeth, noses, stomach, belly, bladder, wounds, bones, to name a few, and in each of these paragraphs it indicates the treatment of each disease, what herbs must be used for each condition“says JJ Mazón.
Nor can we fail to mention the famous Codex of the Cross-Badiano which was written in 1522, which deals with American healing plants and records 224 types of specimens. “It is also worth noting The Natural History of New Spain, by Francisco Hernández. At the end of the 16th century, Fernando II appointed Francisco Hernández general protophysician of Our Indies, islands and mainland of the Ocean Sea and, in addition, commissioned him to explore the natural history and medicine of New Spain.thus leading the first scientific expedition in America, creating the most portentous treatise on indigenous medicine, collecting 3,076 plants,” comments specialist Mazón.
These are some of the examples that demonstrate the impact that ancestral indigenous medicinal knowledge has among Western researchers and how an exchange of medical knowledge and practices has been achieved for more than 500 years, and that, to date, continue to generate more and more research.
The current situation of traditional medicine in Mexico
The interest in knowing and documenting the traditional medicine of Mexico did not stop at the time of the conquest. In 1975, President Luis Echevarría established the Institute of Medicinal Plants (IMEPLAM), then inaugurating an era of official recognition of traditional medicine as a legitimate resource for research integrated into modern medicine. When Echevarría concluded his six-year term, IMEPLAM was absorbed by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), the government agency in charge of public health. The IMSS established the largest herbarium of medicinal plant samples in Latin America, which has a collection that has nearly 14,000 different botanical samples. Meanwhile, IMEPLAM has been renamed several times until ending up with its current name: Southern Biomedical Research Center (CIBIS), with its main headquarters in Cuernavaca, where its focus is the production of herbal medicines.
Traditional medicine not only refers to the knowledge and use of herbal medicine available to treat a certain illness; It is also a cultural manifestation.Shutterstock
In the Political Constitution of the United Mexican StatesIn the second article, it is noted that the nation has a multicultural composition, originally based on its indigenous peoples, who retain their own social, economic and health institutions. Likewise, this article points out ensuring effective access to health services by expanding the coverage of the national system, taking proper advantage of traditional Mexican medicine.
Thanks to this, the Federal Health Law defines as one of its objectives to promote the knowledge and development of traditional indigenous medicine and its practice under appropriate conditions. “This paragraph was annexed in 2006 and resulted in the Ministry of Health establishing the direction of traditional medicine and interculturality for the study of plants, that the IMSS opened a national laboratory for research into medicinal herbs, that at the UNAM in the Institute of Biology is constantly researching traditional medicine, and that the National Polytechnic Institute promotes, with laboratories, the study of medicinal herbs. In summary, this meant that the large research institutions in Mexico began to see alternative medicine as a field in which to investigate.“says Dr. Mazón. Furthermore, in different states of the Mexican Republic, with a high percentage of indigenous population, they have decided to implement in their healthcare offering the so-called mixed hospitals, public health centers that, in addition to offering modern medicine consultations, They provide allopathic and traditional care, with the aim of bringing the indigenous community closer to health services, without leaving aside their customs and traditions.
“In Mexico, in different hospitals or health centers they have implemented traditional medicine therapies, for example, in the Women’s Hospital there is already a temazcal. This becomes a guideline to verify that traditional medicine can go hand in hand with modern medicine,” declares Celina Martínez, traditional doctor.
In this way, the public health strategy contributes to diversifying the medical offer, bring health centers to communities that did not have them and, in this case, provide alternative care. Almost 50 years of anthropological, historical and medical studies have preceded the current enthusiasm for valuing and promoting the use of traditional Mexican medicine, not only as adequate care for each patient, according to their needs and respecting their identity and culture, but as an alternative and field of research for modern medicine.
