The epazotl

The epazotl is one of the plants indigenous to Mexico more appreciated both for its taste as for its medicinal properties. The name comes from Nahuatl epazotl and is derived from épatl, which in Spanish means "zorrillo." After the Conquest, the name is españolizó to "epazote." It is possible that between former Mexican plant has been named by the strong and distinctive smell that have their leaves and reminiscent of the urine of zorrillo.


In botany Nahuatl, the term epazotl defines a genre, ie Mexicas well appointed to a set or group of plants that shared properties and uses. Modern taxonomy has shown that the group that did Mexicas of its plants was quite accurate, since the current classification of epazote includes several species of the same gender (Chenopodium) with different varieties: Ch. Ambrosoides, Ch. Effusum, Ch . Foetidum, Ch. Graveolens, and so on. All these plants in Mexico received the popular name of "epazote."
The species of this genus that has been better studied and receives the botanical name of Teloxys (before Chenopodium) ambrosioides and belongs to the family of quenopodiáceas; grass is a dark color and odor of bitter taste that is widely used as a condiment . The first medical data on the use and properties of epazote from the work of Francisco Hernandez,
Natural History of New Spain. This was the result of observations on flora and fauna made this Mexican doctor in the sixteenth century, in response to instructions received from the king of Spain, Felipe II. For Hernandez, the epazote plant was a "hot in the third grade," as it was defined as the humoral conception of disease or healing resources. Hernandez collected in Mexico several hundred indigenous medicinal plants and carried out their description and classification organizing resources as' cool ',' hot ',' dry 'and' wet ', terminology used extensively by the colonial medicine and in many respects preserved so far in the popular lexicon.
The Spanish doctor says in his book that "added to meals, epazote and strengthens the body, the cooking of their roots, is the remedy most widely used by the Indians to contain the dysentery, allowing shed belly harmful to animals." He had to be very frequent use of this herb among the inhabitants of New Spain, Francisco Hernandez said that since the plant was cultivated in every home gardening.
During the colonial period some authors of books on local resources curative widely described the benefits of epazote. Referred both the use of the root of the stems and leaves to produce a cook who was given a drink which had suffered from asthma or intestinal worms or tooth pain and headache.
Not surprisingly, the fame of "tecito" of epazote as effective cure for those who have intestinal worms, has been so wide in the colonial Mexico; suffice to recall the repugnant resources that put into practice medicine Spanish, to understand his fame. However, as in other cases of indigenous herbal medicine, the epazote was not included in the official Spanish medicine, but its use was preserved and disseminated as a home remedy for healing the popular practice.
The classification of planning by family, genus and species botany, was introduced in the study of nature until the middle of the eighteenth century. In New Spain this methodology was applied while in Europe, thanks to the creation of the Botanical Garden and the Department of Medicinal Botany of Mexico City, who was in charge of the enlightened scientist Vicente Cervantes. The author tells us in his Materia Medica Plant in Mexico, work that was developed in the late eighteenth century, that: "The epazote [then classified as] Chenopodium ambrosioides is common everywhere; powerfully excites the sweat, urine and menstruation ; Cure the flatus and corroborates the stomach. Epazote The Cimarron | classified him as] Chenopodium antihelminticum all born in the orchards of this land as the background and is an excellent remedy for worms, in which it takes its name. "
Later, the same botanical adds a curious fact which shows that the epazote was also introduced in Europe: "In many towns of Castilla epazote to call him tea in New Spain and if the concern of the men was much higher in the estimation provided by productions more withdrawals, will leave the tea in China by this and many other plants that we have in America and not give in under those. "
If the xvni century was the time of the classification of nature and the inventory "sound" of its resources, the nineteenth century was the beginning of its chemical research. The analysis of medical epazote started in this century in both Mexico and Europe. The famous doctor Regiomontana Eleuterio Gonzalez (1813-1888), did an apology from the plant in his treatise Lessons of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, published in Monterrey in 1888. For he knows that since that time in Europe was known to the tea leaves of epazote as "tea of Mexico", "pazte" or "anserina." That botanists have discovered in the leaves of the plant a few tiny oil-producing glands of some "essential" for its distinctive smell and the contents of which were explored in 1827 by an English chemist named Bley.
Another famous physician of the time, surnamed Plenck, studies conducted in Austria in neu-rológicamente affected patients, who administered oil epazote. The disclosure of their studies was extended to the council that this product was useful in combating the evil known as St. Vitus. Since then the plant had reputation as an effective remedy to cure asthma and whooping cough.
The doctors acknowledged Mexicans also emenagogos purposes (to induce menstruation), diuretics and sudorific, and the root was used in the pharmacies of the last century to develop a product in powder form that was used as intestinal desparasitante (anthelmintic). The "epazote of zorrillo" (Chenopodium foetidum) was considered a desparasitante more effective, but toxic.
In our country, was the National Medical Institute (1888-1917) where he investigated in a systematic manner medicinal plants during the last third of the nineteenth century. Hence, Secundino Rodriguez and Edel-miro Rangel showed that several patients in the extracts of epazote (Teloxy ambrosioides and Chenopodium foetidum) were useful in shedding helminths housed in the gut. Subsequently suggested that his oil-rich compound called ascaridol, was responsible for the action desparasitante.
During the twentieth century oil epazote was investigated in depth because its commercial production under the name of Quenopodio was broadcast in several countries such as pharmaceutical drug desparasitante. However, it was shown that the toxicity of the oil was highly risky. The sacaridol and other terpenes in the oil rise in high doses, poisoning of the central nervous system, produce convulsions, respiratory arrest and eventually death. It was concluded that the medicine made from oil epazote should not exceed ten drops per shot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the proliferation of "oil epazote" without appropriate checks and botanical chemicals produced, and continues to cause, common poisoning, especially in young children who were intended to cure intestinal parasitosis with this product.
This circumstance and the subsequent appearance since late in the twentieth century desparasitantes medicines with less toxicity and increased efficiency, made the oil epazote fell into disuse and no longer produced pharmaceuticals.
It is necessary to establish that the use of epazote leaves as a condiment and for development of digestive teas no risk, because in them the concentration of oil is extremely low.