Ethnobotany of Q'eqchi' Maya Medicinal Plants Used for the Treatment of Neurological and Mental Health Disorders in Southern Belize

摘要

Neurological and mental health disorders are extremely debilitating and sufferers in developing countries often rely on traditional practitioners for these medical needs. A previous study found that the Q'eqchi' healers of Southern Belize use a large number of plants to treat certain neurological and mental conditions, especially for headache, epilepsy, and madness. The main objective of the present study was to further investigate plant use for the treatment of neurological and mental health disorders by this group of healers. Six healers were interviewed on the symptomatology, etiology, and plant use for such conditions. It was found that healers generally recognize and treat eight groups of neurological and mental health disorders with herbal remedies: epilepsy/seizures, headache, madness, fright (susto), depression, numbness, insomnia, and stress. Through 270 use-reports, the traditional use of 91 plant species for these ailments was recorded. The results also show that the distribution of knowledge is uneven between healers. The Informant Consensus Factor (F_(ic)) was used to quantify informant agreement, and showed that the ailments understudy represent a wide range of consensus between healers in the plants used. Some of these plants could be very interesting candidates for pharmacological testing, and an assessment of their efficacy could provide useful validation of Q'eqchi' traditional medicine.