EL USO DE LAS PLANTAS MEDICINALES EN LAS COMUNIDADES MAYACHONTALES DE NACAJUCA, TABASCO, MÉXICO

Abstract

Species with healing properties play an
important role in traditional medicine. In
Tabasco, governmental institutions and
institutions of higher education have begun
the recovery of knowledge of medicinal
plants. Health service is one of the most
common needs in the communities of
Mexico, particularly in Tabasco, because
there are not enough health services and
because people who live in rural regions
do not have the economic resources to use
a private health service. Finding themselves in this situation, the Maya-chontal,
an indigenous group of Tabasco, resort to
using medicinal plants according to their
customs. We developed an interest in the
mayan-chontal region of the Municipality
of Nacajuca and analyzed the knowledge of
medicinal plants retained by the inhabitants
and traditional doctors. For this research,
we chose five communities containing
a greater presence of native people. The
informants were selected through the
“snowball” technique and were subjected
to structured and unstructured interviews.
Only 26 people were interviewed, including healers, herb doctors, midwives,
traditional doctors and housewives. During
this process 232 species representing 86
families were recorded, of which 74.6%
(173) were native species and 25.4% (59)
were introduced species. Bronchial illnesses were the most common of the 182
illnesses that were recognized. Leaves of
native plants, such as Epaltes mexicana
Less., Tradescantia spathacea Sw. and
Plecthranthus amboinicus (Lour.) Spreng.,
were used to treat these complaints. Besides species that are used to treat a single
complaint, there exist others that are used
to treat several illnesses and diseases, for
example, momo (Piper auritum), which is
used to treat eleven health problems. The
part of the plants most frequently used was
the leaves, especially in the elaboration of
remedies administered orally.