Traditional medicinal knowledge is essential to mitigate pains and solve health problems in Latin American countries. For over a decade, the Portuguese Tropical Research Institute has been researching the vegetable species used both by low-income urbanites as by plant-therapy believers. A sample has been obtained in São Luis, State of Maranhão, Brazil, during the year 2010. The main aim of the fieldwork was to establish comparisons between the popular genus used by the Brazilian respondents, and by Latin American informants, under the hypothesis that their location and their colonization history explain similar therapies. Results have confirmed that Native American species dominate the ranking of preferences for a wide range of chronic diseases and health afflictions.
Medicinal plant species; São Luis; Maranhão
