Revista de Medicina Pulmonar

Understanding the Exchange of Medicinal Plant Information during the Mission Period in California: It’s Relevance to Current Barriers Facing the Exchange of Indigenous Medicinal Plant Information Today

Joe R. McBride

Although many modern medicines have been derived from the knowledge of the use of plants by indigenous people, we believe there are more cures known to indigenous people that are yet to be communicated to the modern world. The main barriers to communication about these plants are a sense of the part of many members of the developed world that indigenous people are primitive, and their knowledge of medicine is rudimentary and fear on the part of indigenous people that their intellectual property will be taken without proper compensation. There is some truth to both barriers. Our study demonstrated that these and other barriers to communication about medicinal plants occurred in California during the Mission period (1760-1821). In our study we investigated barriers interfering with the transfer of knowledge from the Native Californians to the Franciscan priests at the Missions. We believe a brief review of our study will shed light on the current situation concerning the transfer of medicinal plant information