Community and Health - Natural Therapist

Australian Bush Medicine Products

Primary Middle Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Numeracy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Cooperative Learning Activity

1. There are numerous Australian products that our Indigenous community knows about to help sooth and heal. Professor Joanne Jamie, a medicinal chemist from Macquarie University, in Sydney has compiled a database on Aboriginal plants. Many of those plants, she found, contained anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory compound that are known to western medicine.

Here is a list of 10 best known bush medicines compiled by Australian Geographic:

Tea tree oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) Bundjalung Aboriginal people from the coast of New South Wales crushed tea-tree (or paper bark) leaves and applied the paste to wounds as well as brewing it to a kind of tea for throat ailments. In the 1920s, scientific experiments proved that the tea-tree oil's antiseptic potency was far stronger than the commonly used antiseptic of the time. Since then, the oil has been used to treat everything from fungal infections of the toenails to acne. Witchetty (Witjuti) grub (Endoxyla leucomochla) Witchetty (Witjuti) grubs also a good source of bush tucker were crushed into a paste, placed on burns and covered with a bandage to seal and soothe the skin by some people in Central Australia.	Eucalyptus oil (Eucalyptus sp.) Eucalyptus leaves can be infused for body pains and fevers and chills. Today the oil is used commercially in mouthwash, throat lozenges and cough suppressants. Desert mushrooms (Pycnoporus sp.) Some Aboriginal people suck on the bright orange desert mushroom to cure a sore mouth or lips. It has been known to be a kind of natural teething ring, and is also useful for babies with oral thrush.
Billy goat plum/Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana) The world's richest source of Vitamin C is found in this native fruit from the woodlands of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The plum has 50 times the Vitamin C of oranges, and was a major source of food for tribes in the areas where it grows.	Sandpaper Fig (Ficus opposita) and Stinking Passion Flower (Passiflora foetida) The combination the two plants were used in northern coastal communities to relieve itching. The rough leaves of the sandpaper fig were crushed and soaked in water, the rubbed on the itch until it bled. The pulped fruit of the stinking passion flower was then smeared on to the affected area. Sandpaper fig leaves have also been used to treat fungal skin infections such as ringworm, sometimes in combination with the milky sap.
Emu bush (Eremophila sp.) Concoctions of emu bush leaves were used by Northern Territory Aboriginal tribes to wash sores and cuts; occasionally it was gargled. In the last decade, leaves from the plant were found to have the same strength as some established antibiotics. South Australian scientists want to use the plant for sterilising implants, such as artificial hips.	Goat's foot (Ipomoea pes-caprae) For pain relief from sting ray and stone fish stings, mobs from northern Australia and parts of New South Wales, crushed and heated the leaves of the plant, then applied them directly to the skin. Goat's foot is common near sandy shorelines across Australia.
Snake vine (Tinospora smilacina)    Communities in Central Australia used to crush sections of the vine to treat headaches, rhumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory-related ailments. The sap and leaves were sometimes used to treat sores and wounds.	Kangaroo apple (Solanum laciniatum and Solanum aviculare) The fruit was used as a poultice on swollen joints. The plant contains a steroid which is important to the production of cortisone.

2. In groups of 4 - 5 students, research this interesting article on Indigenous medicine at The Conversation 5 December 2014 and add to the Australian Geographic list above.

Answer the following questions:

• Was there any overlap?

• Did you find out more information on top of what was given in the Australian Geographic? Describe in detail.

3.

Power Words.

Were there any new words that you came across in this article in the Conversation? Write them down and look them up in a dictionary. As a group, discuss the words and how you would use them.

4. Eucalyptus Oil: Investigation

Read the following Landline: 7 September 2014: The Family Tree

Transcript of Landline's The Family Tree from 7 September 2014 [8pages] OR Watch here below: YouTube: Bosisto's on Landline https://youtu.be/pDdXgrJDXUI?si=dmDV-1vembmHzGBO

How did the university scientists help with the production of Eucalyptus Oil?

5. Tea Tree Oil: Investigation

The commeralisation of Tea Tree Oil has blossomed in Australia since the 1960s. Today, about 4000 hectares are under tea tree production, from West Wyalong to Far North Queensland, with average production at 200kg/ha. Wholesale prices have risen to $40 a kilogram.

You are to work out the industry total worth based on the figures above.

6. Tea Tree Oil is sold on the Internet. There is a lot of concern by Australian growers that immitations are sold from other countries. You are to investigate the following list of tea tree oil products:

We know that Thursday Plantation is pure 100% tea tree oil. Compare the prices for 25mls, 50mls and 100mls for Thursday Plantation and other brands. Is there a big difference?

7. Create a poster about Tea Tree Oil and the other bush medicines to be displayed in your classroom.

8.

Reflection

What have you learnt about

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medicine?

• Australian plants

• How to tell a fake product from the real thing?

 Aboriginal Healers: worthwhile keeping this knowledge? Can there be a choice?

 Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Ethical Understanding

Australian Curriculum Cross Curriculum Priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Cooperative Learning Activity

1. Read or listen to the following article from ABC's RN Awaye!

Key quotes are:

"When Dr Francesca Panzironi [Italian Researcher] came to Australia several years ago to study how international legal standards related to Aboriginal traditional medicine, she was amazed at the lack of research or recognition of this 40,000-year-old body of knowledge.

‘I had been aware that globally Australia is recognised as having advanced policy development and support for traditional medicine,’ she says, ‘but it turned out this was because of the official embrace of Chinese medicine. I couldn’t believe that there was a complete dismissal at an official level of Indigenous health practice.’

In the Anangu Pitjintjatjara Yangkunjatjara lands in northern South Australia she found that traditional health knowledge was still alive and well, and working in a contemporary setting. There, Ngangkari healers work alongside doctors and medical staff in community clinics and hospitals, and often visit Adelaide to attend to Indigenous hospital patients. In the mental health area their involvement in the care of Aboriginal people is even enshrined in state law, and Ngangkari deal with everything from childhood illnesses to loss of spirit."

"What she [Panzironi] did see was a country out of step with other countries with indigenous populations. ‘In New Zealand you can walk into a clinic and you can choose between seeing a western doctor or a traditional healer. It’s a two-way system. Canada has the same.’

‘There’s research being done on differences and common characteristics of healing, and studies on the extent to which traditional healing can help in recovery process,’ she says. ‘Australia is quite far behind compared to other countries.’ She quotes Africa and South America as places where there are national associations of indigenous healing, recognised and funded by the government.

Last year, after years of dividing her time between Sydney and the desert, Panzironi published her report, Hand in Hand which argued for policy change so that traditional healing could be given an official role within the Australian health system. At the moment, she says, its absence from the Closing the Gap framework is mystifying. Her report presents anecdotal evidence that if healers were recognised and employed as part of a two-way system they could have a very positive effect on Aboriginal health." (Source: ABC's RN Awaye!)

2.

Discuss with a partner

"Should traditional healing be given an official role within the Australian health system? Why? Why not?"

Remember to use the word "because" showing your reasoning.

3. "The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals’ (art. 24.1). The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges that traditional medicine (TM) has played a fundamental role in primary health care for thousands of years and continues to be an essential component of public health around the world. Accordingly, the WHO has taken a leading role in setting international standards for the development of international and national health policy frameworks and implementation strategies on traditional medicine worldwide."

Discuss with a partner

"Is it ethical to only acknowledge Western Medicine in Australia?"

4. Panzironi states (p16) of her report - Hand in Hand: "The dismissal of Aboriginal traditional medicine replicates a process of epistemological colonization whereby a new terra nullius is created and reproduced in Australia’s current Indigenous health policy, blind to the thousands-year-old Aboriginal medical system."

Class discussion:

"Is this statement too strong? Weak? Moderate? Why? Why not?"