Bitter Roots : The Search for Healing Plants in Africa / Abena Dove Osseo-Asare.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Materia medica, Vegetable--Africa.

Materia medica, Vegetable.

Medicinal plants--Africa.

Medicinal plants.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (309 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companies-including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever-have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africa's medicinal plants. Osseo-Asare recalls the efforts to transform six plants into pharmaceuticals: rosy periwinkle, Asiatic pennywort, grains of paradise, Strophanthus, Cryptolepis, and Hoodia. Through the stories of each plant, she shows that herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry have simultaneous and overlapping histories that cross geographic boundaries. At the same time, Osseo-Asare sheds new light on how various interests have tried to manage the rights to these healing plants and probes the challenges associated with assigning ownership to plants and their biochemical components. A fascinating examination of the history of medicine in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Bitter Roots will be indispensable for scholars of Africa; historians interested in medicine, biochemistry, and society; and policy makers concerned with drug access and patent rights.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction: From Plants to Pharmaceuticals

1. Take Madagascar Periwinkle for Leukemia and Pennywort for Leprosy

2. Take Grains of Paradise for Love

3. Take Arrow Poisons for the Heart

4. Take Bitter Roots for Malaria

5. Take Kalahari Hoodia for Hunger

Conclusion: Toward Bioprosperity

Acknowledgments

Persons Consulted

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226086026

022608602X

9780226086163

022608616X

OCLC:

864899425