Herbs and medicinal plants

Jampiri are knowledgable about medicinal qualities of a resin from the fruit of the Rotan palm tree (Calamus drago), called Sangre do Drago (Blood of the Dragon). Sangre do Drago has a dark red color, hence its name, and contains many active ingredients, including draconine and benzoic acid, therapeutically used for their astrigent and hemostatic properties. There is considerable debate about the remedy and its components. Kallawayan herbalist Manuel de Luca identified Sangre de Drago as Croton roborensis HBK and said that it should be used sparingly to treat Chagas' disease, because it destroys red blood cells. He claimed it improved the immune system. Other herbalists refer it as Sillu supay (Devil's seat), Kura kura, and Llausa mora, and frequently employ palm leaves to bathe someone suffering from susto (soul loss), a frequent symptom of depression or fatigue related to Chagas' disease. The plant's seeds are toasted, crushed, put into a small glass of pisco liquor, and drunk daily. This purges the body of toxic fluids, changing cold and wet blood into hot and dry. According to their ethnophysiology, it accelerates the cenrtofugal forces in the body. The seeds can be crushed, making a salve that relieves rheumatism. Active ingredients of fresh seeds are acetic acid (vinegar-like), butyric acid (like arnica oil), glyceride (soap-like), and croton oil (castor oil), and form a powerful purgative.

Bolivian herbalists develop their skills by learning from other herbalists and through practice. When they treat a disease with an experimental herb, they give the patient small doses to observe its effects over several weeks. If a patient dies in treatment, they are held responsible. Bolivians practice retributive justice, and an herbalist may be killed by relatives of the deceased. Herbalists usually refuse to treat anyone they are unsure about curing; and this apparently works against the terminally ill patient. In instances of those who are chronically ill with Chagas' disease, however, herbalists and victims are less concerned with the disease's risk of causing death as they are with their inability to work. Illness for Andeans is basically a condition when they cannot work, and Western biomedicine's definition of illness does not apply with Bolivian peasants who have tuberculosis and Chagas' disease.