In J. R. R. Tolkien’s great “Lord of the Rings” fantasy novel, a character at one point makes a dismissive comment about “old wives’ tales.” To this, another and wiser character replies:
“Do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that were once needful for the wise to know.”
In regard to modern medicine, it is easy to “despise the lore that has come from distant years.” Scientists today know so much more about the human body and biochemistry.
Nevertheless, that lore often does seem to contain at least clues about medical knowledge that can still be useful.
On Nov. 3, she gave a presentation on “Medicinal Plants of the Holy Land: Science and Tradition” to an audience of about 80 people at Milwaukee’s Urban Ecology Center.
She described how traditional “healers,” who still function in some ethnic communities in Israel, have helped her and other scientists discover medicines existing in plants that grow throughout the country.
Moreover, many of these plants have had medicinal effects known about for centuries, but no one understood why until modern scientists have studied them, she said. “Modern research can support tradition,” she said.
In addition, some of these plants can manufacture functional medicines in ways that modern chemists in their laboratories can’t imitate, she said.
Yaniv-Bachrach — the mother of Milwaukee’s current emissary from Israel, Amit Yaniv-Zehavi — is co-author of the book “Medicinal Plants of the Holy Land” (2000).
She said she and her colleagues spent about 15 years traveling Israel, “from the very north to the very south,” speaking to members of various ethnic groups — Druze, Bedouins, Ethiopian Jews and others.
Some of the older members of these groups, particularly in areas outside the larger cities, still go to see traditional healers instead of modern physicians, she said.
In fact, the Ethiopian Jews have brought their healing traditions with them to Israel, and have opened “at least 40 shops around Israel” to sell their medicinal plants, Yaniv-Bachrach said.
Yaniv-Bachrach said the researchers met and interviewed 80 to 90 such healers, of which none was “younger than 60 years old.”
She said these people shared with the ancient healers several abilities. They were experienced diagnosticians who often could recognize illnesses from symptoms.
They were “sensitive psychologists” who could inspire confidence in their patients, even to using in effect “the power of the placebo” to relieve symptoms.
Above all, they were botanists, who knew where to find medically useful plants, when to harvest them, what parts of them to use and how to prepare them.
“It is important to document this information,” Yaniv-Bachrach said, not least because it is “another way to find new drugs from nature.”
Researchers have to beware of some potential traps in doing this kind of work, she said. For example, getting the right plant can be tricky.
Some plants have more than one common name, given by different folklores or healers. Yaniv-Bachrach said one plant, with the scientific name cyclamen persicum, used to treat infections and abscesses, has seven common names.
Or it may be that several different plants have the same common name. Yaniv-Bachrach said at least four different plants are known by the name “wound’s herb.”
Researchers also need to pay close attention to such matters as when the healers harvest plants. Yaniv-Bachrach spoke of a research team that tried to study a type of burnet (sarcopterium spinosum) whose roots, when cooked, yield a liquid that helps lower blood sugar, an important aid in treatment of diabetes.
However, the team members didn’t speak to the ethno-botanists about their project, and they found no medicinal effect. The problem, as was eventually discovered, was that the researchers used roots harvested in the winter; whereas the healers knew that the proper time to gather those roots was in the summer.
Yaniv-Bachrach also spoke briefly about plants found in the Jewish Bible. The books contain many references to the use of spices. For example, Joseph was sold by his brothers to a caravan that was taking spices to Egypt (Genesis 37:25).
The Song of Songs contains “a very impressive list of perfumes” made from plants and often imported from distant lands into ancient Israel, she said.
However, the Bible does not contain many references to the use of plants in medicine, she said. She suggested that the authors and editors of the Bible might have been afraid people would worship plants if too much was made of their power to heal.
Yet other ancient literature mentions medical plants, like the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus.
Yaniv-Bachrach appears to have a particular fondness for the “Materia Medica” of the first century C.E. Greek military physician Dioscorides. This work describes some 600 plants and includes pictures so accurate that the plants can be identified today.
“I have in my lab a facsimile of this book,” she said. “I always enjoy reading what Dioscorides had to say before doing my research.”
The event was sponsored by the Israel Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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