The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines — Edition Insights

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Authors: Pardo de Tavera, T. H. (Trinidad Hermenegildo), 1857-1925, Thomas, Jerome Beers, 1867- [Translator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Medicinal plants -- Philippines; Botany -- Philippines Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 73,664

Reading time 321 min

Text sections 19

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #26393

This editorial note examines T. H. Pardo de Tavera's 1901 work on Philippine medicinal plants, focusing on the author's blend of scientific description, local nomenclature, and therapeutic claims, as well as the translator's additions for practical use by medical officers.

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+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NOTICE | | | | The medical knowledge represented in this book is over a century | | old. The publication of this book is for historical interest only, | | and is not to be construed as medical advice by Project Gutenberg | | or its volunteers. Medicinal plants should not be used without | | consulting a trained medical professional. Medical science has made | | considerable progress since this book was written. Recommendations | | or prescriptions may have been superseded by better alternatives, | | or invalidated altogether. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

Philippine Archipelago

The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines

T. H. Pardo De Tavera

Doctor en Medicina de la Facultad de Paris, Comisionado Cientifico de S. M. en las Islas Filipinas y Delegado General en las Mismas de la Société Académique Indo-Chinoise de Francia, Miembro Fundador Correspondiente de la Sociedad Española de Higiene, Etc.

Translated and Revised by

Jerome B. Thomas, Jr., A.B., M.D.

Captain and Assistant Surgeon, U. S. V.

P. Blakiston's Son & Co.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

This translation was undertaken with the especial object of facilitating the study of the native medicinal plants by the numerous medical officers stationed at small posts throughout the Philippines. In order to aid in the recognition of these plants, the botanical descriptions have been revised to the extent of adding, where possible, the size and shape of the plant, English name, length of leaves, color of flowers, etc., in many instances supplying the entire botanical description where it had been omitted on account of general familiarity with the plant. Comparing the few analyses that I have had an opportunity to make with corresponding ones in the native works from which Dr. Tavera has taken his botanical descriptions, I am impressed with the necessity for a revision of the Botany of the Philippines. However, as the therapeutic properties of the flora are of foremost interest to the medical profession I have not hesitated to publish the book in its present form as an entering wedge, leaving to those better fitted the great work of classifying the flora of these islands in accordance with modern botanical science.

Dr. Tavera has faithfully described the Malay and Hindu therapeutics of the present day, enriching his description by observations founded on a long practice in Paris and in his own native Luzon. From this potpourri of scientific therapeutics and ignorant, superstitious drugging the interested physician will elicit not a few useful data concerning the treatment of disease in the tropics, and at the same time gain a more intimate knowledge of both the people and plants of our new Asiatic possessions.

I take this occasion to gratefully acknowledge my obligations to Mr. A. P. Tonielli, stenographer and translator of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, for typewriting the manuscript of this translation.

Jerome B. Thomas, Jr.

Commissioned by His Majesty's Government to study the medicinal plants of my native country, I returned there and spent two years in collecting data regarding the use that the Filipinos make of their plants in the treatment of disease. At the same time I collected and carefully preserved some with the purpose of taking them to Europe, to study their chemical composition in the laboratories of Paris under the direction of the eminent men who had been my instructors in medicine.

The work I did in the Philippines was preliminary, a preparation for the more extended study of the subject which I wished to make in Paris, where I went with my notes and collection. Unfortunately, upon leaving Manila, I confided the mounting and pressing of my plants to an inexperienced person who stupidly placed in the midst of them several succulent tubers which decomposed during the voyage and spoiled the other plants. At the same time I received in Paris an important collection of the vegetable drugs of the Philippines, sent by my friend the pharmacist, M. Rosedo Garcia, and destined for the World's Fair of 1889. I opened with great pleasure the wood and zinc box in which the collection came, anticipating that I should be able to carry out my plan of study and at the same time win for my friend, Garcia, a well-deserved premium. Imagine my disappointment upon finding that, by an unfortunate coincidence, his plants had arrived in the same condition as mine, having also been packed with tubers of ubi, gabi, etc., and several cocoanuts which had decomposed.

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T. H. Pardo de Tavera's The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines (1901) opens with a striking juxtaposition: precise botanical descriptions—leaf shape, flower color, stamen count—sit alongside folk remedies and doses measured in "tolas." The translator, Jerome B. Thomas, Jr., notes in his preface that he added botanical details where Tavera had omitted them, aiming to help American medical officers identify plants at remote posts. This dual authorship creates a text that is part scientific manual, part ethnographic record.

A Hybrid of Science and Local Practice

Pardo de Tavera, a Filipino physician trained in Paris, structures each entry with a botanical description, a list of local names ("Nom. Vulg."), and a section on uses. The entry for Ixora coccinea (santan) exemplifies this: after detailing the calyx and corolla, it reports that "the handsome red flowers are used in decoction for hæmoptysis and catarrhal bronchitis." The author does not dismiss indigenous knowledge; he records it alongside European pharmacopoeia. For coffee, he cites General Morin's anecdote of fifty-year-old Moka, then discusses caffeine's cardiac effects—a blend of traveler's tale and biochemistry.

The Translator's Practical Lens

Jerome B. Thomas, Jr., an American army surgeon, frames the translation as a "potpourri of scientific therapeutics and ignorant, superstitious drugging." His revisions add English names, leaf dimensions, and flower colors—details Tavera had considered too familiar to include. Thomas admits he has not fully revised the botany, calling the work an "entering wedge." This pragmatic approach means the text sometimes wavers: a plant may be described as "so well known that further description would be superfluous," yet Thomas supplies the missing details anyway. The result is a layered document, where two medical cultures—Filipino and American—negotiate authority on the page.

Diction: From Clinical to Colloquial

Tavera's voice shifts between clinical precision and casual observation. In the coffee entry, he notes that newly harvested beans "need considerable time—2 or 3 years—in which to dry completely" before acquiring aroma. The phrase "of course under ideal conditions of preservation" adds a wry, worldly tone. Elsewhere, he describes coffee's anaphrodisiac effect by quoting Linnaeus's epithet "drink of eunuchs"—a remark that feels more like salon wit than medical advice. This stylistic range suggests a writer comfortable in multiple registers, from the laboratory to the plantation.

Recurring Details: Local Names and Doses

Throughout the excerpts, Tavera consistently provides local names (Tagalog, Spanish) and specific doses. For Ixora coccinea, he records a Concan recipe: "cook 2 'tolas' (13.60 grams) of the flowers in lard, together with coriander and 'mesua ferrea,' add a little candied sugar and divide the mass into large pills." The precision of the gram conversion (13.60) contrasts with the imprecision of "large pills." This pattern—exact weight, vague form—recurs, hinting at a therapeutics that is both empirical and artisanal. The local names anchor each plant in a specific geography, reminding the reader that this is not a universal pharmacopoeia but a regional one.

Readers should approach this text as a historical artifact of cross-cultural medicine. The botanical descriptions are often accurate, but the therapeutic claims reflect late-nineteenth-century knowledge and should not be taken as current advice. Pay attention to the tension between Tavera's scientific training and his willingness to record folk practices—a tension that makes the book valuable for understanding how colonial medicine catalogued and sometimes co-opted indigenous knowledge.

I often think of Pardo de Tavera’s careful, tender listing of Philippine remedies—each name a small anchor for memory. It brings to mind a quieter shelf neighbor, The botanist's repository for new and rare plants; vol. 09 [of 10] — Themes and Context, where each plate feels like a whispered introduction. Both are catalogues of hope, really, human longing pressed between pages.