Can the emotion of fear be treated with herbs?

In a Dominica village three herbs, along with prayer and exercise are reportedly used by 27% of adults for medicinal treatment for fright. Dr. Marsha Quinlan, an Anthropologist at the Washington State University, Pullman, WA says that “Fright” is an english speaking caribbean idiom for an illness, or ethnomedical syndrome, of persistent distress, with parallel terms in other cultures such as West Indian, Hispanic and French. The three herbs are:

1) Gossypium barbadense L.

2) Lippia micromera Schauer

3) Plectranthus [Coleus] anboinicus [Loureiro] Sprengel

The entire article is available at (online: http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/6/1/9):

Ethnomedicine and ethnobotany of fright, a Caribbean culture – bound psychiatric syndrome.

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2010, 6:9.

Dr. Marsha Quinlan is a sociocultural medical anthropologist concerned with the ways culture affects health and medical care.

References on Natural Medicinal Plants

We will be placing these references in a more organized format in the future.

1. R. Fansworth, “Screening plants for New Medicines,” in “Biodiversity”, Part II; Washington DC: Academy Press, 1989; pp. 83-97.

2. P. P. Principe, “The Economics and Significance of Plants and their Constituents as Drugs,” in “Economic and Medicinal Plant Research”, H. Wagner, H. Hikino and N. R. Farnsworth (eds.); New York Academic Press, 1989.

3. W. V. Reid, “Biodiversity Prospecting: Using genetic resources for sustainable development”, Washington DC: World. Resources Institute, 1993.

4. Lewis, Walter Hepworth. “Medicinal botany: plants affecting human health/Walter H. Lewis. Memory P.F. Elvin-Lewis-2nd ed. 2003. John Wiley & Son Inc., NJ.