Mexicans turn to Aztec remedies as dollars for medicines dry up

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An increase in the practice of herbal medicine in Mexico as a knock-on effect of the economic downturn in the USA.

Until a few months ago, Mara Enriqueta Reyes, an elderly woman dressed in an olive-green skirt and wrapped in several layers of knitted cardigans, would invariably treat stomach aches with a trip to the doctor or the pharmacy to buy medicine.

But ever since the grandmother from the village of Tlalpujahuilla, in the Mexican state of Michoacn, stopped receiving money transfers from her sons in the US, she has reduced costs by boiling leaves from the maestra (or "teacher") plant picked from a nearby field and drinking the infusion. "It's very bitter but you add the juice of a lime and a pinch of bicarbonate, and it goes down very well," she says.

All over Michoacn, people such as Ms Reyes are returning to ancient medicinal practices and home-spun cures as the US downturn has started to hit the incomes of families who rely on relatives working north of the border to send money home. The increasing difficulty of finding steady work in the US has led to a sharp tail-off in remittances over the past few months and, this month, Mexico's central bank reported the biggest single yearly fall - 12.2 per cent to August - since it started keeping records.

The problems are particularly acute in Michoacn, which has traditionally exported the greatest amount of informal labour to the US of any Mexican state, and is also historically the biggest recipient of remittances.

Edgardo Arqueta, a 35-year-old chemist living in the town of Tlalpujahua de Rayn, has never relied on dollars from the US, but he is hurting just the same. Sales of medicines and beauty products at his pharmacy on the town's main street are down by about 80 per cent compared with last year.

In response, Mr Arqueta has stopped buying inventory. "There's just no point in stocking any of this stuff any more," he says, gesturing to the severely depleted shelves behind him. Where people used to buy baby wipes, they now use a damp cloth. Where they bought antibiotics, they now use plants."

In Senguio, a small town in the hills of Michoacn, the absence of remittances has caused problems for most residents - but not for Elvira Ros. For years, she has practised ancient, plant-based medicine that she learned from an old woman who died many years ago. Most of the time, people come to her when their babies suffer with empacho, a stomach-related illness.

The 50 pesos (EUR2.98) that Ms Ros charges is half the price of an appointment with the doctor. Many residents are not eligible for the government-run health clinic because they are not officially registered or do not qualify. Besides, the massage she gives together with a few sips of a laxative tea made from local plants seems to do the job.

Carlos Zolla, an Argentina-born doctor and director of the "Mexico, a Multicultural Nation" programme at Mexico City's Unam university, says many of the cures used in Michoacn date back to Aztec times. He says they are often a valid alternative to more expensive western medicines. "These cures are not appropriate for more serious illnesses, but for most of the common complaints they work very well," he says.

Even so, Rafael Vanegas, one of Senguio's doctors, is concerned that prolonged use of herbs over modern medicine could lead to a decline in the population's health. "What worries me is that if the cures don't work, people's illnesses are more advanced by the time they finally decide to come here," he says.