Traditional Medicine: Choke-Cherry - Essay Example

Traditional Medicine Choke- cherry

Traditional medicine is one of the main aspects that constituted the lives of the indigenous people of the Anishinaabe. Traditional medicine as a term refers to a collection of various aspects combining knowledge, skills, and practices that are used in the maintenance of good health by the indigenous people. These skills, practices and knowledge base on the beliefs, theories and experiences of the indigenous people and are often applied in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment or improvement of the physical and the mental illnesses (WPentore, Venneri, & Nichelli, 1996). The traditional medication system is often associated with the use of herbal medicine to prevent and cure some kinds of illnesses. Herbal medicine, in this case, is used to refer to plant or herbal materials such as some parts of plants with active medicinal value that are administered to the patients to prevent or cure particular illnesses. There are millions of plants with medicinal value used by the Anishinaabe people to maintain their physical and mental health. For example, the Choke- cherry is a traditional medicine that has been used across the world by the indigenous people for various purposes. The paper herein looks at the Choke- cherry in details to unravel its active contents and its specific uses as herbal medicine. From the analysis, the paper checks on the relevance and applicability of the traditional medicine on the modern treatment methods.

Choke- cherry is a fruit from an indigenous plant common in the North American region and is often used as a traditional medicine by the Anishinaabe people to cure various diseases. The North American indigenous plant that bears the choke- cherry fruits is the cherry tree (Mauch, 2011). The scientific name of the cherry tree is Prunus virginiana. The cherry tree is a shrub and grows up to a height of twenty feet slightly smaller than the black cherry. The leaves of the cherry tree are sharp-toothed, oval, and the midrib does not have hairs. Conversely, the flowers are white in the thicker raceme and often bloom from the month of April to July. The fruits, which are also referred to as the choke- cherry, are reddish in color, and the bark is non-aromatic. The plant being a shrub is cheaper hence, suitability for use as it is cost effective thereby not imposing negative impacts on economies.

(Retrieved from http://montanahomesteader.com/chokecherry-identification-foraging/)

The choke- cherries or the cherry tree fruits are scientifically called Prunus demissa or the P. melanocarpa (Barnes & Mallik, 1997). The choke- cherry was used by the Aboriginal community to make permmican, which are normally mixed with elk, fat back and dear meat and used as traveling rations and daily local food. The choke- cherry or the cherry trees are available in the thickets of the North Carolina, Louisiana, Canada and Kansas. The choke- cherry has often been in use by the Native American communities as medicine since it has a number of medicinal properties. The medicinal properties of the choke- cherry include antitussive, astringent, carminative, pectoral and sedative. The communities prefer it because of the wide number of use it causes on the users.

The leaves of the choke cherry are dark green in color and paler below while glossy above. The leaves are alternate, glabrous, simple and elliptic in shape. The margins of the leaves are having closely-packed teeth pointing outwards making the leaves to appear serrated and they usually turn yellow during autumn. The young trees have the color of their barks varying from reddish brown to yellow which permanently turns darker as the tree ages. The bark of a mature cherry tree becomes noticeably furrowed and distinctively marked with the horizontal rows of lenticels, which finally develop into shallow groves during maturity. The flowers of the cherry are perfect and are arranged in cylindrical racemes.

Choke cherry grows naturally in a wide range of types of soils. Soils that can support the growth of choke cherry vary significantly from then virgin grasslands to the abandoned construction soils with no depth and texture. However, in most cases, the plant grows well in silt and sandy soil and does not grow well in the heavy clay soils and the pH of the soil can also vary from 5 to 8 which are moderately alkaline.

(Retrieved from http://www.thisfoxkitchen.com/recipe-wild-chokecherry-jam/)

Choke- cherry is used as a tonic and as a remedy for any chronic irritation condition resulting from debility. It is efficient in its purpose since it reacts within a short duration to achieve the objective. The medicine is even used in the modern health services as syrup for acute coughs coupled with intense fever and insomnia. Choke- cherry acts as an excellent sedative and tonic medicine relieving irritation of the mucosa (Muhuri & Gfroerer, 2009). The medicine was also used by the native Anishinaabe people for relieving terminal nerves and reducing the violent action of the cardiac dependent on the weakness. When the patient requires a sedative and a tonic that would not cause excitement of the circulation, choke- cherry is always considered most useful. The native communities used the choke- cherry drug to treat patients suffering from fevers and inflammation, which often occur after pneumonia and the la grippe. The tonic effects of the choke- cherry drug extends from the mucosa to the lungs to the hearts and finally to the lungs. The dried bark of the choke- cherry is useful for curing anxiety with insomnia, heart palpitations, and nervous stomach. Menopausal yin deficiency accompanied with irritation and inflammation of the of the mucus membranes, heart palpitations, and hot flashes can be cured using the dried bark of the choke- cherry.

The choke- cherry can also be mixed with the Rose hip, which is another curing herb from the rose family and used as a general heart tonic. The drug can also be combined with ginger to relieve patients from high blood pressure coupled with anxiety and for simple heart palpitations, it is good to use with Motherwort. Among other uses, the choke- cherry is mixed with various other traditional medicines to cure or relieve the patients from certain conditions (Peters & Ramanna, 2009). For example, the medicine can be mixed with Elderberry to relieve the people from burning and painful UTIs. The mixture of the choke- cherry and the Elderberry can also be used to relieve from viruses that tends to settle in the lungs resulting in fatigue and feelings of depression. The Anishinaabe people often used the choke- cherry as a nervine for children and pregnant women as it relieves from exhaustion and overstimulation by the body hormones and lack of sleep or insomnia. However, choke- cherry is used on tissues where there is high heat and irritation coupled with anxiety and is not appropriate on areas where there is too much tissue relaxation (Shiell & Zatylny, 2002). For example, if someone is already relaxed, feeling cold and quiet, the application of the choke- cherry would not be appropriate.

The bark of the choke- cherry is the main part that is used for medical purposes to offer remedy for various illnesses including coughing and controlling the effects of fever. The bark of the choke- cherry is considered as a perfect heat reducer and has anti-inflammatory characteristics that make it useful in the curing of acute sinus inflammation and all the allergies that are characterized by inflammation (Anwar, Gruczynska, & Bain, 2008). The bark of the choke- cherry can also be used in the treatment of the shingles and herpes, which are always treated using any herb that has anti-inflammatory, cooling, and ant-viral characteristics.

The bark of the cherry tree consists of the cyanogenic components that include amygdalin and prunasin. The cyanogenic compounds are often present in most of the members of the rose family. However, the bark of the choke- cherry has some poisonous chemical substances during some stage of the growth and should not be harvested in the late winters and early springs when its sap is still running. The barks should be preferably harvested during the mid-summer period since at this time the cyanogenic compounds are normally lower (Capasso, 2003). The medicine is administered orally. The oral intake of the cyanogenic compounds is not harmful as the hydrolysis that takes place during digestion or by the liver releases an acid that is then detoxified by the body. When the choke- cherry is used to treat signs of heat or inflammation, the doses should include taking five drops of the drug two time a day up to when the illness with seize. However, depending on the herbalist’s recommendation the dosage can go up to about one to six millimeters a day. The bark of the choke- cherry can be prepared in various ways depending on the use ranging from boiling, drying to infusing (Peters & Ortiz, 2010). The seeds of the cherry tree are toxic since they contain hydrocyanic acid in the stems, leaves and the seeds. Therefore, the seeds are supposed to be treated first to remove the glycosides before they are allowed in the market or used as a medication. Several instances of hydrocyanic acid poisoning have been reported by consumption of the non-treated choke cherry seeds or other parts of the tree.

When the bark of the cherry is scratched or one twig of the tree is snapped off, an almond odor can be felt. The almond odor is often unpleasant and may cause irritation of the mucosal membrane leading to sneezing. Most of the herbalists or the traditional medicine persons of the Anishinaabe community used the almond odor to identify the choke- cherry from other plants. Black Knot Fungus, which is a disease common to the members of the Prunus genus often attacks the choke- cherry tree. However, in case the medicine is taken accidentally, there would be no harm done on the victim and some herbalists recommend taking the medicine occasionally even when not feeling sick. The Anishinaabe people of North America use the choke- cherry and the choke- cherry species of herbs to cure a variety of diseases. Choke- cherry is also used in treating dysentery and diarrhea due to its astringent characteristic.

Apart from being used as a traditional medicine by the Anishinaabe people and then Native Americans, the choke cherry can also be used as a garden decorative plant due to its glossy foliage. The trees that often appear low and bush like can be able to grow up to around twenty feet in height and develop about eight inches diameter trunks making them ideal plants for compound decoration.

In summary, Choke- cherry is one of the traditional medicines used by the Anishinaabe people for the treatment and curing of various illnesses. The herbal medicine is readily available in various parts of North America and is cheaper since it grows naturally on favoring grounds. The wide range of its applications on human bodies makes it effective and recommendable in modern day treatments.