Introduction: “Pickle ash” and “high blood”

Summary

My first introduction to something that might be called “medical anthropology” occurred in 1969, although at the time, I had never heard that phrase. I was doing fieldwork on St. Helena Island in South Carolina as part of my Ph. D. work. St. Helena is a barrier island, just across the Broad River to the north from much better known Hilton Head Island. Interested in family organization in a black community (debates raged in the 1960s about “the black family”), I thought that a thorough investigation of such families in a real community would be worthwhile. As I pursued my genealogies and spoke with these kind people, I heard an occasional reference to the use of certain plants - they called them “weeds” - to treat various illnesses. Intrigued, I pursued the matter, and found a number of people eager to talk about it. Eventually, I was able to identify three dozen or so “weeds” that were part of everyday use; most were better known to older than younger Islanders, but most everyone knew something about it. The whole matter seemed very odd to me; today, surrounded by “health food” and “natural medicine” shops, with everyone taking Echinacea to stimulate his or her immune system, and Gingko to ward off Alzheimer's disease, it doesn't seem so unusual to hear about medicinal plants, but in the 1960s, it was odd indeed. I wondered if anyone else had ever used those plants for anything, and did they work?