A POTION IN THE PRESS...
Initial writings of Kenneth Jones, author of Pau d'Arco. Immune Power of
the Rain Forrest. While researching for information about Pau d'Arco effects for
diabetes I found that these opening paragraphs from the authors authoritative
book to be quite informative. A bit lengthy but contains a wealth of information
well worth reading.
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The spring of 1967 found the masses of Brazil reeling from the commotion
caused by press reports of a powerful tea made from the bark of the Pau d'Arco
tree. As hundreds offered testimony before the cameras of Sao Paulo TV,
people began ripping the bark from the trees wherever they could be found. A
devestation of Pau d'Arco was seen across the country. What with the following
announcement in the press, it isn't difficult to see why.
"The story of the discovery is fantastic. But it is
nothing compared to the news which could be the most
important in the history of humanity. Cancer has a cure...
the news--cure for cancer--is to be taken as being
essentially true and honest, or more exactly, strickly scientific."
Stictly speaking, of course the news was not "scientific" and contrary what the
story would have the people believe, cancer did not at last have a cure.
However, key individuals interviewed in that and subsequent reports in the
Brazilian news magazine O'Cruzeiro have since confirmed that the contents are
accurate and represent the only extensive account of Pau d'Arco's
contemporary history in Brazil.
Having traced a seemingly endless number of people who would testify to near
miraculous "cures", O'Cruzeiro began with the account of a girl in Rio, sick with
cancer, incessantly praying for a cure. In a vision, a monk promised her
recovery if she would drink tea brewed from the bark of the Pau d'Arco tree. But
to her parents this was plainly a symptom of her weakened condition snd loss
of faith in her physicians. In a second visitation, the monk said that she would
be cured if she drank tea made from the Pau d'Arco trees growing in
Pernambuco or Bahia and then told the news to others. However supernatural,
the advice was heeded, and she regained her health. O'Cruzeiro learned from
this one case, numerous others had faithfully followed. The trail of cures led to
a famous Brazilian herbalist.
THE SKEPTICAL PROFESSOR
Traveling to Piracicaba, the magazine reporters visited the one person who
more than any other in Brazil had championed the bark, the botanist Valter
Acorsi, professor emeritus at the University of Sao Paulo. They found him
attending lines of over 2000 people a day. The demand was so great that he
worked from dawn to dusk distributing the bark for free. Accorsi began his
career in the 1930s and has since accumulated a vast inventory of herbal
therapies. He is widely regarded as one of Brazil's most prominent patrons of
herbs and is frequently consulted by industry, physicians, and just plain folks,
all in search of the knowledge his lifetime with plants provides.
He knew the episode of the girl in Rio and when close friends started using
the bark, he began to study the trees in his own state of Sao Paulo to see
whether they might serve as well as those from Bahi, located in the
northeast of Brazil. He admitted that his work could hardly be called scientific,
he relied on simple observations. The trees from Sao Paulo in the south
had the same qualities, but the northern population from Pernambuco and
Bahia seemed best. Taking 400 kilograms from purple- and yellow-flowered
Pau d'Arco, both from Bahia, he compared the effects in leukemia patients. He
was convinced that the bark of the purple-flowered Pau d'Arco was superior.
Accorsi believed he was able to verify "two great truths": The bark iliminated
pain and caused a significant increase in the volume of red blood cells. He
noted how the bark appeared to be curing everything from diabetes to ulcers
and rheumayis, and it seemed to be working in a matter of weeks. Even so,
he was reluctant to believe it and for a time kept the information largely to
himself.
When the wife of a childhood friend recovered from terminal cance of the
intestine, his inate skepticism finally gave way. Over a period of eight months
she had endured five operations. Accorci explained that after taking the bark
she was well again. O'Cruzeiro verified the account.
From early in the morning, Accorci's telephone kept ringing with orders for the
bark, mostly from doctors. For the treatment of cancer, he suggested an extract
of the bark, a tespoon with water at intervals of three hours. Dosages were not
exact because as he explained, the "composition" and levels of active
constituents had not been worked out. A dosage limit was regulated with a
maximum indicated by the appearance of "a slight rash."
CLINICAL INQUIRY
An interview with Accorci's sister, Gioconda provided leads to more recent
cases, and the reporters were suddenly faced with an incredible variety from
whuch to chose. A handful of their verified cases are recounted in the following
paragraphs.
A nun with cancer of the tonge finally gave up on conventional treatments
when lengthy radiation offered negligible relief and she could no longer
talk. Her health restored, she telehoned every week to order the bark for others.
Doctors attending a certain Francisco de Arrunda became desperate when they
learned their patient has abanded to find relief from "Arigo," the famous
trance-surgeon who operated with little more than a pocket knife.
"Francisco was found, and the tumor on his scalp was treated with the bark in a
topical form. Six years later, when he was ninety-two years old, no sign of the
cancer remained.
An oncologist and surgeon, Dr. Jose Lemini related the case of an older man he
had previously operated on who should have been dead a year earlier: the
cancer was spreading through the stomach and liver. His patient made such a
recovery that he was able to visit the clinic by traveling on foot from the outside the
city.
Dr. Neves was another who was familiar with the bark, but he limited its use
mostly to patients with rheumatism. He claimed that the results were
"extraordinary." As for the cancer, all four of the cases that he treated with
Pau d'Arco were hopeless. "The patients were as old as the cancer."
After seven years of first hand observation , Accorsi concluded that the bark
held six main areas of application: diuretic, sedative, analgesic, decongestant,
antibiotic, and cardiotonic.
MEDIA CONFRONTATION
In their follow-up one week later, the O'Cruziero reporters began dolefuly
describing the consequences of their first report. Many of the accounts have
been supplied by physicians who were now at great risk of losing their licenses
by prescribing the bark in hospitals. Another problem was the multitude
gathered on the lawns of the hospital at Santo Andre hoping to obtain the new
precious bark. The crowd grew to such a size that the normal function of the
hospital was seriously threatened. Here and at the Hospital of Clinics in Sao
Paulo, signs hung in the hallways announcing the distribution of the bark was
suspended. But the public would not be detered. At the Botanical Gardens in
Campinas, then a city of 500,000, and at other reserves across Brazil, droves
of people clambered walls and fences to strip the bark from the trees
conveniently marked as the "purple" Pau d'Arco by the botanist who tended and
now patroled them. Pau d'Arco had become a phenomenon.
The reporters confessed that their emphsis on a "cure" for cancer was
deliberate, "in order to make [pau d'arco] stand out. They promised to reveal
doctor's names, medical histories, x-ray and biopsy test results, and any other
documented evidence. But throughout the hospital of Santo Andre the subject
was closed: experiments were stopped, and the entire staff was forbidden to
discuss the matter.
Now it was war. Publishing names, incriminating quotations, and, bearing the
heading of the hospital, signed prescriptions for the bark in the treatment of
cancer and diabetes, O'Cruzeiro broke all pacts of silence. The hospital
pharmacist, Benediti de Castro, confirmed the studies at the hospital where the
bark had always been used and accompanied by a medical prescription, but de
Castro made it known that the hospital was not proclaiming that cancer at last
had a cure. His intention was to place a complete dossier in the hands of an authority
who after serious investigation would then be able to discuss the subject.
Not everyone was so cautious. Pharmacist Antonio Braga motioned that the
bark be aquired for mass distibution to the public. He also felt that the
government should take over, and in fact some such efforts were already being
made. The Ministry of Agriculture sent samples to the United States and the
federal parliament assigned a commission of inquiry "to clarify what there is to
be known.
A meeting was arranged for reporters to put forth further questions at the
mayer's office. As the chambers heated with testimony about "cures" the
reporters learned that the reported cases of diabetics cured with Pau d'Arco
had gone past the 1000 mark. Pharmacist Octaviano Gaiarsa recalled cured
cases of varicose ulcers, and one case in which tests had confirmed the
remission of osteomyelitis (inflamation of the bone caused by a pus-forming
organism). He related the story of "an advanced case of leukemia" that the
hospital had assesed as fatal. The white blood cell was up to 240,000. A month
of Pau d'Arco later, the count was down to 20,000. Dr. Gaiarsa referred the
reporters to the pharmacist de Castro descibing him as very knowledgeable on
the subject and one who had compiled a dossier of cases that numbered in the
thousands. When de Castro was interviewed he expressed his confidence in
the bark, especially against diabetes. Brazilian scientists have since
discovered that like several other Brazilian herbs commonly used to treat
diabetes, Pau d'Arco (Tabebuia Heptaphyllia) inhibits the absortion of glucose in
the intestine.
TAKING CONFESSIONS
Another magazine story...
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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