Ethnobotanical treatment of tropical diseases, malaria and dengue, prescribed by Bioenergético practitioners and profile of the involved population in meridional amazon

Diene Gonçalves Larocca; Norberto  Gomes Ribeiro Júnior; Ricardo Eduardo Vicente; Ivone  Vieira da Silva

Diene Gonçalves Larocca Laboratório de Anatomia Vegetal do Centro de Pesquisa e Tecnologia da Amazônia Meridional, Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso
Norberto Gomes Ribeiro Júnior Laboratório de Anatomia Vegetal do Centro de Pesquisa e Tecnologia da Amazônia Meridional, Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso
Ricardo Eduardo Vicente Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso
Ivone Vieira da Silva Laboratório de Anatomia Vegetal do Centro de Pesquisa e Tecnologia da Amazônia Meridional, Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso

Keywords: alternative treatment, ethnobiology, medicinal plants, traditional knowledge

Abstract

The World Health Organization has been encouraging public policies in several countries to implement alternative methods for their complementary health systems. One alternative movements in Brazil known as “Bioenergético” or “Araminho” was disseminated in the 2000s, mainly in the Amazon region, regions that are developing and with high rates of tropical diseases. This study aimed to conduct an ethnobotanical survey with Bioenergético teams through the application of semi-structured questionnaires to 14 pairs of practitioners, in order to list the species of plants used in the treatment of malaria and dengue and observe the socioeconomic types of the participants. The proportion of men and women is the same among the participants, who generally are maried are between 33 and 62 years old, live in the countryside and are all catholic. Fifty six species from 31 botanical families were mentioned, of which 37 species were used for the treat- ment of malaria and 54 for dengue, with many plants being used in both treatments. The most used plant species for the treatment of malaria are Baccharis trimera (Less.) DC, Aristolochia trilobata L., Momordica charantia L., Esenbeckia leiocarpa Engl., Abuta grandifolia (Mart.), Strychnos pseudoquina A. St.-Hil. and Stachyterpheta cayennensis (Rich.) Vahl. For the treatment of dengue the most used species are Baccharis trimera (Less.) DC, Aristolochia trilobata L., Momordica charantia L., Chenopodium ambrosioides L., Ocimum gratissimum L., Strychnos pseudoquina A. St.-Hil. and Stachyterpheta cayennensis (Rich.) Vahl. It was possible to verify that A. trilobata, S. pseudoquina, C. ambrosioides and M. charantia are the common species in the treatment of both diseases. Socioeconomic, cultural and religious conditions had a direct influence on the popularization of the Bioenergético method in Alta Floresta, MT, Brazil, dominated by people of rural origin and who even with access to conventional medicine seek this method of treatment.