Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE<br />
Billy Webb Tree<br />
Sweetia panamensis<br />
The bark of the tree is boiled and drunk as a tea for diabetes, tiredness, lack of appetite, delayed<br />
menstruation, and dry coughs.<br />
Like a thousand other mornings, Don Elijio and I set out early in search of<br />
plants. This day our task was to locate Billy Webb trees from which we<br />
carefully strip long slivers of bark in a way that allows the tree to regenerate<br />
easily. The bark, boiled and drunk, was an important part of Don Elijio’s<br />
arsenal of plants. He used it to treat diabetes and dry coughs, and to<br />
encourage the appetite.<br />
The day before, we had finished our supply of Zorillo or Skunk Root. It<br />
seemed we could never keep enough of the foul-smelling root in stock.<br />
Many days we gave it to patients as soon as we set down our sacks, <strong>with</strong>out<br />
a chance to chop and dry it.<br />
A tea of Zorillo was used to cleanse internal organs and to help heal<br />
stomach ulcers. Baths in water steeped <strong>with</strong> the root helped many skin<br />
conditions common in the tropics. Don Elijio’s nickname for Zorillo was<br />
Metinche (someone who puts their nose into everything), in reference to its<br />
versatility for both physical and spiritual ailments. Whenever he was<br />
confused about symptoms or didn’t get the expected results <strong>with</strong> other<br />
herbs, he would prescribe Zorillo. So we needed also to restock our Zorillo<br />
or Skunk Root supply.<br />
We had brought a light lunch of tortillas <strong>with</strong> us because the Billy Webb<br />
trees were a long, circuitous hike away from the forest footpath that lay<br />
about two miles north of the village.<br />
Just walking to the trail took over an hour. “When I first started <strong>with</strong><br />
this work, I could see my farmacia from my doorstep,” he explained. That<br />
was the late 1930s. By the 1960s, he had to walk thirty minutes to reach the<br />
old growth forest where his vital remedies grew. In the 1980s, the healing<br />
forest was an hour’s walk up a road, through merciless sunlight. The tall