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The United Nations via the World Health
Organization (WHO) stated 20 years ago that 80% of people in the world
use plants as their first and often only health care.
Percentages of people using traditional medicines decreases in
developed countries to not insignificant levels, 40-50 percent
in Germany , 42 percent in the USA , 48 percent in Australia and
49 percent in France. Thirty percent of the drugs sold worldwide
contain compounds derived from plant material.
Most
nations have Traditional Healers (identified in differing terms). They have learned to use
plants to heal people suffering from a wide variety of ailments
(yet not always successfully or without causing other problems
yet that can be remedied with education).
Many of them use dreams or visions for diagnosing and
finding remedies for their clients. Many traditional healers
which are known by many names are the
indigenous people of the world, peoples of the forests,
jungles, plains, deserts, islands and tundra. All of them have
learned what local plants work to heal ailments.
From one region to another they have
learned to heal almost every manner of ailment from cuts and bruises,
ulcers, diabetes, to women’s complaints. The plants
may not be the same in each location even if some are
related. Methods used to diagnose an ailment vary too. A
noticeable commonality of methods and plants exists amongst
them.
The International Journal of Traditional
Medicines aims to chronicle the spectrum of plants used by
various peoples before small pockets of knowledge are absorbed into larger communities, and
the diversity of knowledge about ailments for which specific
plants are effective, is lost. NewHortus.com
is being developed to list all plants in the world, yet specific use
of plants as medicines on that site is infeasible. So Traditional Healers
are invited to reveal what they know and be paid for it. It will
include info on combinations of plants used, and amounts. Then
they or the community will be asked to supply the plants, or
seeds and rooted cuttings for the world so the plants cannot be
lost. (NewHortus.com will list active components, if they are known
by science,
something that few Traditional Healers know).
According to the Secretariat of the
Convention on Biological Diversity, global sales of herbal
products totalled an estimated US$60 000 million in 2002. BuyOrSell.It will sell the products the Traditional Healers use to people who want a natural remedy.
Expect the products to be mailed from the Traditional Healer to you
directly, as fresh as they can be, or dried, or as extracts, or
mixtures ready to be turned into teas, poultices or other
remedies. Some plant materials will be sent from
distribution locations. (Two thirds of BuyOrSell.It’s profit from
each sale go to fund your choice of two technology challenges on
CPrize.org, or a literacy program to help the ‘bottom billion’
via FirstSpells.com. Healers are encouraged to participate in
our programs.) |
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