Season 1, Episode 2
Healing Plants
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We know plants are healers, of course. But they’re also so much more. They have shaped our history. Just a few centuries ago, they drove exploration, started wars, transformed economies. Today, they are the bedrock of big pharma and traditional medicine empires.
We can’t fault the modern life-saving drugs that Western medicine has given us. But we wonder if something effervescent doesn’t get lost when plants become pills? Perhaps the traditional and holistic healing framework that medicinal plants once belonged to?
Time Markers (mins: sec)
0:28 - Murder on the Karakoram Pass
6:00 - Overview of the episode
7:34 - Chapter 1: Plants as healers
12:00 - Chapter 2: Plants as drivers of Empire
19:00 - The story of healer Itty Achuden
22:23 - Chapter 3: Plants as commodities
23:40 - A visit to a Madras bazaar with a British surgeon
29:16 - Chapter 4: Agents of conquest
Guests
Pratik Chakrabarti
Annamma Spudich
Dominik Wujastyk
Ines Županov
Resources
Transcript
References
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Chatroom Episodes
Chatroom 11: When Technology Meets Ayurveda
Feb 3, 2021The influx of technology such as pocket watches beginning in the 1860s transformed India’s traditional medical systems
Chatroom 9: Disease Goddesses and Scapegoats
Jan 6, 2021In India, a rich tradition of Disease Goddesses assigned a female deity to each illness. She was believed both to cause and protect from the disease.
Chatroom 7: An Ancient Pandemic Story
Dec 2, 2020A Sanskrit scholar narrates a tale from one of the oldest Ayurvedic texts, Charaka-samhita, that has surprising resonance with our current lives
Chatroom 5: Ayurveda & Science
Nov 4, 2020Can the great divide between traditional and allopathic medicines ever be bridged? We talk with biologist Annamma Spudich about Ayurveda
Chatroom #3: The Most Ancient Medicine
Oct 7, 2020Folk Healing is the most ancient form of medicine. G. Hariramamurthi has visited more than 12,000 villages across India to document folk medicine practices
References
Bower, H. A Trip to Turkistan. The Geographical Journal 5, no. 3: 240-57; 1895. doi:10.2307/1773933.
Chakrabarti, Pratik. “Neither of meate nor drinke, but what the Doctor alloweth”: Medicine amidst War and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Madras. Bull Hist Med. 2006 Spring; 80(1): 1–38. doi: 10.1353/bhm.2006.0009
Freedman, Paul. Search for Flavors Influenced Our World. Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; 2003. https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/search-flavors-influenced-our-world. Accessed Sept. 12, 2020.
Ghanapatigal, Govind Prakash Bhat and Bhat, Satyanarayana; audio production K. Suresh. Powerful Mantra for Medicinal Healing, Oshadhaya Suktam, Yajur Veda. https://youtu.be/AE2RD07FXE0; 2020. More info at https://ghanapati.com/
Gottardi, Davide; Bukvicki, Danka; Prasad, Sahdeo, Tyagi, Amit K. Beneficial Effects of Spices in Food Preservation and Safety. Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol. 7. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01394. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.01394
Grove, Richard. Indigenous Knowledge and the Significance of South-West India for Portuguese and Dutch C...