Rainforest Education
A learning resource for students of nature of all ages!
Plant Medicines
Some of our oldest medicines came from plants. Digitalis, for heart failure, came from the foxglove plant. Colchicine, for the treatment of gout, came from a small flower, the colchicum. And quinine, for the prevention and treatment of malaria, as well as the treatment of some heart diseases, came from the back of the cinchona tree in the rainforests of South America. Even now, we have found new medicines for malaria from artemesia plants ("Sweet Annie") and medicines for cancer from the Pacific Yew (taxol). The potential for discovery of new medicines is vast.
How plants become medicine.
Rainforest Medicines
My 5-acre pharmacy
Maine roadside pharmacy
Dr. Jim Duke, author of "The Green Pharmacy", leading a group of pharmacists and physicians in the rainforests of Costa Rica. Dr. Duke headed the USDA program seeking anti-cancer drugs in the rainforest for many years.