Holistic greetings to readers of this column. What do sex, Cattlewash and Caesalpinia bonduc have in common?
Cattlewash is one of the homes in Barbados of silent doctor horsenicker, which is reputed by some to be a marvellous sexual enhancer. However, horsenickers in spite of being magnificent healers are mistreated.
In fact, they have been abandoned, underestimated economically and are waning farther in the distance in the department of healing. Therefore, I am appealing to the authorities to implement a strategy to save and preserve the surviving trees.
This month I was inspired by the Creator to inform you about coastal silent doctors. They are indeed an important part of not only heritage tourism, but were sources of “First World” medicine and “game seeds” for many of our ancestors.
I knew Caesalpinia bonduc or horsenicker as a child. My St Joseph grandmother spoke to me about horsenicker when one of us found seeds and brought them home.
I remember rubbing the grey seed on the step and when it got hot, I sneaked up on my sisters and touched them with it.
The rest is history. Later, I also discovered that the seeds were used to play a game called warri. This game crossed the Atlantic with the Africans and is one of the oldest surviving games.
In some cultures, research points to horsenicker as a treatment for the following health challenges. The root bark is useful for asthma, indigestion, colic, amenorrhea, period pains, fevers, cough, intestinal worms, flatulence and indigestion.
The leaves are useful for enlargement of the liver, elephantiasis, intestinal worms, dyspepsia, period pains, fevers and throat pains.
The seed extracts are bitter and are used for sexual enhancement and as a contraceptive.
They are also useful for diabetes, colic, hemorrhoids, intestinal worms, arthritis, splenopathy, fevers, inflammations, cough, asthma, leucoderma/vitiligo and other such skin challenges.
Finally, Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner advised in the article Good Drugs in the March 3 DAILY?Nation that “Barbadians will not be receiving any cheap watered down drugs from the Barbados Drug Service”.
On reading this statement I humbly noted that my “silent doctors” are not “watered down”, but are electrifying.
Revert to Ezekiel 47:12: “. . . The fruit thereof shall be for meat and the leaf thereof for medicine.”