Medicinal plants used by Latino healers for women's health conditions in New York City

This paper examines rite use of medicinal plants by Latino healers in New Y ork City to treat various, women's illnesses. Eight Latino healers collabor ated on the study through consultations with female patients who had one of the following conditions as diagnosed by biomedically trained physicians: uterine fibroids, hot flashes,,menorrhagia, or endometrosis. The study iden tified a total of 67 plant species prescribed by the healers in the form of mixtures or as individual plants. Voucher specimens were collected from lo cal botanicas and identified by specialists at The New. York Botanical Gard en. Studies of immigrant traditional healers and the plants they use in an urban setting ran provide interesting ethnobotanical data and information t o assist in diagnosing conditions and contributing to treatment of patients from Latino as, well as non-Latino communities.