Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 156846, 17 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/156846
Review Article
Medical Ethnobotany in Europe: From Field Ethnography to a More Culturally Sensitive Evidence-Based CAM?
Cassandra L. Quave,1 Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana,2 and Andrea Pieroni3
1Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, 550 Asbury Circle, Candler Library 107, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
2Departamento de Biología (Botánica), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, c/Darwin 2, Campus de Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
3University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 9, 12060 Bra/Pollenzo, Italy
Received 2 April 2012; Accepted 13 May 2012
Academic Editor: Fabio Firenzuoli
Copyright © 2012 Cassandra L. Quave et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
European folk medicine has a long and vibrant history, enriched with the various documented uses of local and imported plants and plant products that are often unique to specific cultures or environments. In this paper, we consider the medicoethnobotanical field studies conducted in Europe over the past two decades. We contend that these studies represent an important foundation for understanding local small-scale uses of CAM natural products and allow us to assess the potential for expansion of these into the global market. Moreover, we discuss how field studies of this nature can provide useful information to the allopathic medical community as they seek to reconcile existing and emerging CAM therapies with conventional biomedicine. This is of great importance not only for phytopharmacovigilance and managing risk of herb-drug interactions in mainstream patients that use CAM, but also for educating the medical community about ethnomedical systems and practices so that they can better serve growing migrant populations. Across Europe, the general status of this traditional medical knowledge is at risk due to acculturation trends and the urgency to document and conserve this knowledge is evident in the majority of the studies reviewed.