Comercio de hierbas medicinales en Patagonia: hibridación entre el patrón global de uso y la perspectiva local

FLORENCIA CUASSOLO; ANA LADIO; CECILIA EZCURRA

Bariloche

Congreso; Seminario Argentino-Brasilero de Etnobiología; 2011

SOLAE

Background: A better understanding of use pattern about medicinal plants in an urban context is needed given that the fact their role in the primary health care systems. Objetives: An ethnobotancial survey of medicinal plants commercialized in markets of S.C. de Bariloche (NW Patagonia, Argentina) was conducted considering the special and cultural heterogeneinity of this type of settings. Methods: Shopkeepers in a total of 30 centers that dispense herbal medicines were interviewed (N=30), sites were chosen at random and aspects such as marketing medicinal flora were assessed. Results: We identified three types of shops that sell medicinal herbs: pharmacies, medicinal herb stores, and health food stores. 264 species were inventoried; of these 68 were the most sold. We found that native medicinal species are marketed as much as exotic plants. Diseases most commonly reported were gastro-intestinal and genito-urinary. We found that pharmacies sell fewer species than herb stores, and that establishments located in centric areas sell herbs that are associated with ailments of modern society, such as sedatives, tranquilizers, diuretics and herbs used for weight loss. On the other hand, herbalists had a greater offer of herbs associated with a higher diversity of traditional uses and diseases. We found that those plants that were most frequently mentioned were also the most versatile. With respect to the consumers, most of the informants said that they were inhabitants of the city. However, 40% of the informants responded that the main consumers were people of rural origin. This last percentage would indicate that rural people still practice traditional medicine and use urban stores to buy some resources that they cannot harvest.