I looked askance at the title for Monday's meeting and wondered whether to go, particularly as it was a very cold night. "Phytomedicine" looked like a relative of psycho fuzzy medicine complete with crystal gazing and vegan recipes. However, I decided to go anyway and found how wrong my impression was.
Phytomedicine is "herbal medicine with therapeutic and healing properties" and Reg Harris is a world leader in his field. He studied at Otago and Australian National Universities and won a Winston Churchill Fellowship in 2006 to study regenerative medicine. He is also attached to Victoria University of Wellington and a volunteer guide at the Botanic Gardens.
Reg managed to explain clearly and simply the most complex processes of how our bodies cope with high cholesterol, low-level pain, acute severe pain, high blood pressure, and particularly how chemicals contained in different plants affect these situations, and how plants contain chemicals to treat these conditions.
Folk medicine often had a grounding in fact: We learned how the willow leaf was used as an early form of medication for pain relief by the Sumerians 5000 (sic) years before a German scientist found it could be used to make aspirin. We learned how yew tree leaves are a key source of calcium useful as channel blockers for high blood pressure, but yew tree needles can kill a person. Similarly, foxgloves contain elements which can cure and elements which can kill, and many, many other examples.
Not being scientists, these chemicals mostly come under the heading "don't try this at home", but on a positive note, eat plenty of legumes, particularly alfalfa and fruit including apples and kiwifruit.
Thank you, Reg, for a fascinating and very high-powered address.
N.B. If you see an elderly gentleman smiling and waving at four-year-olds on Brunswick Street do not worry and do NOT call the police, he is really a very nice man.
