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Potions, Poisons and Panaceas: An Ethnobotanical Study of Montserrat (Hardcover)

~ Adjunct Professor David Eric Brussell PhD (Author), Richard Evans Schultes (Foreword)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This ethnobotanical study of the island of Montserrat is an engaging catalog rich in information about plants and the integral part they play in Caribbean culture, history, and folklore. In addition to twenty-four color plates and fifty-two black-and-white photographs, Brussell’s study contains an exhaustive list of 378 botanical entries, featuring 282 species of ethnobotanically important plants representing 78 families.

David Eric Brussell begins this volume with an informative summary of the previous botanical research of the flora of Montserrat conducted by early scientists and explorers. He then describes his own collecting methodology and looks at the significance of the study area’s geography, climate, vegetation, and history. His extensive catalog of the plants and their uses, however, comprises the major portion of the book, with the appendix listing all the collected plants as well as the author’s field collection records.

Of particular note is Brussell’s investigation of the flora in regard to Caribbean culture. As a result of his extensive interviews with the West Indian people, Brussell was able to observe their myriad utilizations of the plants in voodoo rituals and practices and as medicines and foodstuffs. Informants also reported using some plants as aphrodisiacs and poisons, insecticides and insect repellents, dyes, building materials, and industrial chemicals. Brussell’s research suggests that further pharmacological investigations of Montserrat’s bioactive plants may yield new medicines, noncarcinogenic insect repellents, or environmentally safe insecticides.



About the Author

David Eric Brussell is the senior biologist at Pacific Quest, Inc., Haleiwa, Hawaii, and an adjunct assistant professor of plant biology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (February 19, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0809315521
  • ISBN-13: 978-0809315529
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,161,778 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #41 in  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Ethnobotany

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Potions, Poisons and Panaceas: A Review, April 1, 2005
By Richard Buch (Long Island New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
David Brussell. Potions, Poisons and Panaceas An Ethnobotanical Study of Montserrat
Reviewed by Richard Ian Buch
David Brussell is an ethnobotanist who teaches at Southern Illinois University in Nakajo, Niigata, Japan. Ethnobotany is a science which draws upon fields as diverse as biology, pharmacology, anthropology and folk-lore. Potions, Poisons and Panaceas An Ethnobotanical Study of Montserrat is an account of the author's field-work on the Island of Montserrat.
In his introduction to the book Dr. Brussell explains that the floral diversity of the island engenders a "rich heritage of plant folklore, much of the knowledge is still available in the older people of the island, but would be lost if this information were not recorded while the elder generation is still living." These cultures are fast dying out; it is more important to do field work than to rewrite what has already been written. If ethnobotanists like Dr. Brussell were not doing this work, these stories would not be preserved. In this brilliant study science intersects with literature and folklore.
What distinguishes Dr. Brussell's work is that rather than do his research entirely in the library --which is how many books on plant usage are often written-- Dr. Brussell has gone out into the field, exploring in the rain forest, climbing mountains, making friends with the local people and observing how plants are used. He also visited markets in order to see which specimens were actually sold, and personally experimented with some of the plants. As a result of this he was able to collect 378 specimens of which 272 are described in this book. In his forward to the book, the eminent biologist Professor Richard Evans Schultes of Harvard University, hails it as a valuable contribution to "the development of Caribbean ethnbotanical investigations."
The reader is instantly drawn into the moist warmth of a tropical paradise by the cover, a photograph of Chances Peak. It immediately makes you want to linger through its pages soaking in the tropical ambiance. The reader is rewarded with lots of photographs, many of them in color, of the specimens, setting and local informants. One photograph, reflecting the prevalence of voodoo culture on the island, shows a large mahogany coffin hanging from a tree in an upper level rainforest banana garden as a warning not to steal any bananas. Ethnobotany encompasses the study of such practices as many plants are used for ritualistic purposes.
Dr. Brussell describes his ethnobotanical research methods, including interviewing local people about the various uses of the plants as well as the folklore attached to them. He interviewed "farmers, fishermen, bush doctors, herdsmen, gardeners, midwives, woodsmen, carpenters and sailors."
The book begins with an explanation of his research methods and a description of the climate, vegetation and history of the area. Montserrat is a mountainous island in the Eastern Caribbean. It has a tropical climate "tempered by cooling northeastern trade winds." The vegetation there is diverse including dry forests, tropical rain forests, and elfin woodlands found at higher altitudes.
First inhabited by Ciboney Amerindians from around 500BC to 500 AD it was later inhabited by the Arawak culture who were then displaced by the Caribs around 1500. Sighted and named after a mountain in Spain by Columbus in 1493 it was settled by the British in the seventeenth century. Sugarcane become the main industry on the island and black slaves were imported there to work on the plantations. Their descendants make up the bulk of the population. Montserrat has suffered recently from a major volcanic eruption.
The bulk of the book is a description and discussion of the ethnobotanical uses of the 272 of the 378 plant specimens collected. It covers everything from aphrodisiacs to medicinal, hallucinogenic and poisonous plants, as well as those that are used for practical purposes such as dental floss and making brooms. Along with the copious illustrations, what is so fascinating to the modern reader used to obtaining most of their panaceas neatly packaged and labeled from a drug store, is the variety of plants that, given the knowledge that has been handed down for countless generations, can be used for medicinal and other purposes and are directly obtainable from the land. Here are plants such as Justicia pectoralis Jacq.; Bitter Balsam, the first citation in this book, whose leaves and stems are used to make a tea used for the treatment of flu and pneumonia. Under Ficus aurea Nutt., or The Evil Tree we learn about local folklore. Because this tree literally strangles other trees in its proliferation "people believed that evil spirits called 'Jumbies' live in the roots of this tree and if a person cuts or harms this tree the Jumbies will 'get after' that person."
While these descriptions of the plants and the folklore and uses attached to them are a source of valuable information for the scientific community, they are also make fascinating reading for those of us who are not scientists. Anyone visiting the Caribbean would find this book a valuable traveling companion as it is not too unwieldy to comfortably carry. Many of the plants or close relatives of these plants are found in Japan. This book gives us valuable information on comparing how these plants, or their close relatives, are used in different parts of the world.
This is a fascinating book. Here is the fast disappearing floral abundance of a Caribbean Island, its plants, its folklore, its use in voodoo rituals, all meticulously recorded and photographed by an ethnobiologist who insists that valid research is best done out in the field. His research will have far reaching effects. In his preface Dr. J-P. Theurillat of the Conservatoire Botanique in Geneva notes that Dr. Brussell's "field research supports scientific evidence that certain of the plants may have a future in the treatment of AIDS and cancer...the book will permit the ethnobotanical comparison of the utilization of the same plant from one region of the world to another."
With the recent volcanic eruption on the Island which may have destroyed some of the species recorded in this book and the death of so many of the older informants, this book constitutes an important preservation of an important global resource. So many of these resources, such as the tropical rain forests, are being decimated by industrial greed. A book like this contributes to our awareness of how important it is for us to preserve the valuable resources of this earth.
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