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ABSTRACT
POSSE, Juliana Costa. Plantas medicinais utilizadas pelos usuários do SUS nos
bairros de Paquetá e Santa Teresa: Uma abordagem etnobotânica. Rio de Janeiro,
2007. Dissertação (Mestrado). Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências Farmacêuticas,
Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2007.
The groups of users of Medicinal Plants of the Phytotherapy Program of the City
Department of Health of Rio de Janeiro (SMS- RJ) are characterized by regular meetings
between people of the community and health care professionals. The main goal of these
groups are: to involve the community into activities such as taking care of the local gardens
of medicinal plants (cultivation, preparation and use), knowledge exchange, and to pass on
scientific knowledge through lectures and courses.
The aim of this work was to analyze, from the ethnobotanic point of view, the use of
medicinal plants by the members of the groups of the Health Units of Santa Teresa and
Paquetá neighborhoods, in Rio de Janeiro, as well as to select plants with potential for
future studies against memory disturbs.
Twenty informal and half-structured interviews were made with the components of
the groups at their homes and at the health units, besides participant observation during the
meetings, as well as in the outdoors activities of the groups. In the interviews, 72 plants
were quoted, most of which were collected and herborized. The plants were acquired at city
shops, with neighbors, in the gardens of the Health Units and at their own backyards. The
most mentioned botanical families were Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Myrtaceae and Rutaceae.
Ten plants, recommended as “memory improvers”, were selected along the interviews, as
follows: rosemary – Rosmarinus oficinailis L.; “alevante” or “levante” – Mentha gentilis
L.; “alfazema” – Aloysia gratissima Gill; anise star – Ilicium verum Hook; chamomile –
Chamomila spp ; cinnamon – Cinnnamomum zeylanicum Breyn; clove – Syzygium
aromaticum L.; fennel – Foeniculum vulgare Mill.; Ginkgo – Ginkgo biloba L; mango tree
– Mangifera indica L. We may say that those plants have the potential to be further
investigated in studies for the treatment of Alzheimer Disease. According to the WHO
international classification of diseases, the most representative disease categories in this
research were: infectious and parasitic diseases, diseases of the nervous system, and those
of the digestive tract. These data differ from those of the last epidemiological study issued
by the Department of Health of the City of Rio de Janeiro for the AP1 area (Program Area
1, which includes these two neighborhoods). In this way, it is possible to suggest that the
use of medicinal plants by the studied groups is restricted to the treatment of simple
diseases, treated by home activities, being left out of the epidemiological statistics of the
City.
Only 6% of the plants cited in ethnobotanical mentions represented herbal
medicines produced by the Phytotherapy Program. The lack of cultural identification with