Belize Alternative Medicine

IIn 1981, Dr. Rosita Arvigo, an American doctor of naprapathy, moved with her husband and family to Belize, where they were determined to start a farm in the jungles of Western Belize and establish a natural healing clinic. "Dr. Rosita" (as she is fondly known in Belize) had studied herbal medicine in Mexico, and she began to hear stories of an old Mayan traditional healer who was reknown for his ability to cure hopelessly ill patients. Two years after her arrival, Dr. Rosita finally met 86 year old Don Elijio Panti, who eventually became her teacher. For ten years, Dr. Rosita studied and learned from Don Eligio the art of traditional Mayan natural healing. She also studied and learned the Mayan spiritual traditions that are an integral part of Don Eligio's tradition and alternative medicine.

Location

The 35 acre farm on which the family grew their food, as well as the healing herbs Arvigo learned about from Don Eligio, is named Ix Chel Farms, in honor of the Mayan Goddess of Healing. She was determined to preserve the knowledge of Don Eligio so that it will not die out when the last traditional shamans are gone. Sadly, Don Elijio died in February of 1996. His death was mourned throughout the world.

In 1987, Arvigo wrote to Michael Balick, the Director of the the Institue of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden about Ix Chel Farms and the work she was doing with Don Eligio Panti. Balick, who had just received a contract from the National Cancer Institute to collect tropical plants for study and testing for possible cures for AIDS and cancer, went to Belize to see for himself. From that visit sprang the Belize Ethnobotany Project, which to date has sent over 2,000 plants to the NCI.

The Ix Chel Foundation

The Ix Chel Tropical Research foundation began to hold conferences for practitioners of natural healing in Belize; from those conferences grew the Belize Association of Traditional Healers. Dr. Rosita teaches herbal medicine at the Belize College of Agriculture and holds seminars for community health care volunteers and for nursing and pharmacology at the University of Belize. She has written a children's book about medicinal plants. She is dedicated to the preservation of the science and art of traditional Mayan herbal healing for the benefit of the people of Belize and the world.

In 1993, the Belizean government established the world's first medicinal plant reserve. This 6,000 acre reserve, dedicated to the preservation of potential lifesaving herbs, is called the Terra Nova Medicinal Plant Reserve. Seedling plants "rescued" from rainforest areas in danger of destruction from development are sent to Terra Nova for transplanting. The reserve is run by the Belize Association of Traditional Healers.

Rainforest Remedies

Dr. Rosita has also established Rainforest Remedies, a cooperative enterprise that makes and markets herbal remedies in liquid form, as well as dried herbs to be used to make medicinal teas; the company shares its profits with its employees and the traditional healing cooperative. These alternative medicine remedies are derived from the plants that are "rescued" before the bulldozers can get to them. They have colorful names, such as "Traveler's Tonic" and "Belly Be Good." These remedies are sold in most gift shops in Belize (the "Jungle Salve" is especially useful for quick healing of mosquito bites); and are also marketed overseas in the Caribbean and in Europe. They can be ordered individually by mail in the U.S., but federal labelling regulations and the powerful A.M.A. lobby have so far blocked their distribution to U.S. health food stores.