Use of cultivated plants and non-plant remedies for human and animal home-medication in Liubań district, Belarus

Abstract

BackgroundTo use any domestic remedy, specific knowledge and skills are required. Simple logic dictates that the use of wild plants in the context of limited interaction with nature requires prior identification, while in the case of non-plant remedies and cultivated plants this step can be omitted. This paper aims to document the current and past uses of non-plant remedies and cultivated plants in the study region for human/animal medication; to analyze the human medicinal and veterinary use areas in the context of the remedy groups; to qualitatively compare the results with relevant historical publications; and to compare the intensity and purpose of use between the remedy groups.MethodsDuring field studies 134 semi-structured interviews were conducted with locals from 11 villages in the Liubań district of Belarus. Currently used home-remedies as well as those used in the past were documented by employing the folk history method. The subject was approached through health-related uses, not by way of remedies. Interview records were digitalized and structured in Detailed Use Records in order to ascertain local perceptions. An Informant Consensus Factor (FIC) was calculated for remedy groups as well as for different use categories.ResultsIn the human medication area the use of nearby remedies was neither very diverse nor numerous: 266 DUR for 45 taxa belonging to 27 families were recorded for cultivated plants along with 188 DUR for 58 different non-plant remedies. The FIC values for both remedy groups were lower than for wild plants. In the ethnoveterinary medicine use area there were 48 DUR referring to the use of 14 cultivated plant taxa from 12 families and 72 DUR referring to the use of 31 non-plant remedies. The FIC value for the whole veterinary use area of cultivated plants was relatively low, yet similar to the FIC of wild plants.ConclusionsDifferences between remedy groups were pronounced, indicating that in domestic human medicine cultivated plants and non-plant remedies are either remarkably less important than wild ones or not considered worth talking about. In ethnoveterinary medicine non-plant remedies are almost equally important as wild plants, while cultivated plants are the least used. People in study area seem to still more often rely on, or are more willing to talk to strangers about, wild plants, as promoted by both official medicine and popular literature.

Homogenisation of Biocultural Diversity: Plant Ethnomedicine and Its Diachronic Change in Setomaa and Võromaa, Estonia, in the Last Century

“…Twenty-four taxa were named by one person and 12 by two people. More than half of the taxa (45) were collected from the wild. Some wild taxa were also cultivated for medicinal use (e.g., Origanum vulgare) or for food, and then used for medicine (e.g., Ribes nigrum, Rubus idaeus), or purchased (e.g., Valeriana officinalis).…”

Multifarious Trajectories in Plant-Based Ethnoveterinary Knowledge in Northern and Southern Eastern Europe

“…Animal breeding involves maintaining animal health and welfare. Scholars have found that the knowledge related to healing and ensuring the welfare of domestic animals has been largely abandoned in industrialized areas of Europe (3), while it appears to be relatively alive in rural contexts of the Mediterranean (4) and in some areas of Eastern Europe, e.g., Belarus (5)(6)(7). In the Mediterranean region, folk veterinary knowledge has been partially preserved due to geographical isolation and distance from veterinary services, yet it is rapidly declining and being replaced by modern livestock farming technologies and administrative veterinary controls (4).…”

Borders as Crossroads: The Diverging Routes of Herbal Knowledge of Romanians Living on the Romanian and Ukrainian Sides of Bukovina

“…Among possible pan-Soviet elements, Aesculus hippocastanus infused in alcohol for relieving joint and rheumatic pain was also reported in Belarus Sõukand et al (2017a) and in Estonia (Sõukand and Kalle 2011), where an increase in use was also detected during Soviet times. Another plant common to other Eastern European countries is Aloe spp., which is used especially for treating the skin but also the digestive system ( Sõukand et al, 2017b ). Linum usitatissimum , well known in Estonia for its ethnoveterinary for its ethnoveterinary properties ( Kalle and Kaas, 2020 ), is still sometimes used for the digestive system ( Sõukand et al, 2017b ).…”

“…Another plant common to other Eastern European countries is Aloe spp., which is used especially for treating the skin but also the digestive system ( Sõukand et al, 2017b ). Linum usitatissimum , well known in Estonia for its ethnoveterinary for its ethnoveterinary properties ( Kalle and Kaas, 2020 ), is still sometimes used for the digestive system ( Sõukand et al, 2017b ). Finally, Ribes nigrum was mentioned on the Romanian side of the border but only for food purposes, and in Ukraine, it was also mentioned for treating the circulatory and cardiovascular systems, and it was reported for several other uses in Belarus ( Sõukand et al, 2017b ).…”