By Tom Moore

Tony Ramirez has been immersed in the use and study of plants and herbs for medicinal purposes since childhood. One could say that it is in his blood, a legacy of folk knowledge that has been passed from one generation to another. In recent decades that legacy has diminished, but it has recently been experiencing a renaissance as interest in alternative medicine continues to grow.
Ramirez has spent the last 25 years in the field of collecting and cataloging the knowledge of medicinal plants and herbal lore of the South Texas and northern Mexico region. "My interest has always been the medicinal value of plants, the possibility that all plants are medicinal to one extant or another," he said.
Describing himself as "essentially self taught," Ramirez originally intended to pursue a degree in the field of ethnobotany but found there was no place to study it. He also discovered the lack of information on such knowledge. "What was available in South Texas was very little," he said. "What I thought was going to be an easy task, wasn't. I've been working on this ever since." This area of study is known as pharmacognosy, a science dealing with the composition, production, use, and history of drugs of plant and animal origin.
Ramirez began his research in 1975, but the Laredo native has been familiar with medicinal plants since he was a child. He cited his paternal grandmother, Paula Garza Ramirez, and his maternal grandfather, Manuel Vela Saenz, with his lifelong interest in herbal knowledge. "Those were the two who had the most lasting influence on me. It was how I got into this," he said. "It was fate, destiny."
Garza Ramirez was a medicinal healer. She lived in the monte, Ramirez said, and learned herbal lore from her mother. "She was very knowledgeable in practical things," Ramirez said of his grandmother. "It was how you survived. I was always taken to my grandmother first before going to the doctor."
Saenz formulated patent medicines -- cough medicines, liniments, etc., -- "stuff that was popular at the time," Ramirez said, "all based on herbs." Saenz had a lab with wooden barrels of herbs, racks and tables, and bottles, Ramirez said. He traveled throughout South Texas plying his trade. His route included the little towns in the area, and he supplied pharmacies, stores, and tienditas, doing business in trade and barter, more with plants and food than money. Ramirez said that Saenz' sons did not go into the family business.
Ramirez' own experience in herbal and plant knowledge has ironically coincided with a growing movement in a return to alternative healing. "Back in 1975 I had wanted to pursue a degree in ethnobotany, but there was no place to go study it," he said. "Now there are many universities that offer these forms of studies, and alternative facilities that offer specialized courses in ethnobotany or pharmacognosy.
"Pharmacognosy was eliminated from pharmacy school in the late 50s, early 60s," Ramirez continued. "That information was lost. The knowledge became more and more distant. Physicians were taught to prescribe medication that was provided by the pharmaceutical industry.
"Medicine's come full circle," Ramirez said, "to the point now that medical schools are providing that education and schools of pharmacy are teaching that. We're getting back in line with the way it was. Over the last 25 to 30 years, people have been looking for alternative medicine, complementary medicine. It has many names. About 75 percent of US medical schools now offer courses in alternative medicine. It's a real exciting time that we're in, as long as we continue to have the freedom to use this."
Ramirez recently participated in the Mostrario de Medicina Tradicional, a traditional medicine health fair hosted by the Mexican government in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas (see this month's Medicine Man column on p. 52 for the story).
"Mexico is very advanced in working with traditional healers," he said. "Since Mexico has a very large indigenous population in remote areas, the only medical treatment available is traditional. The Mexican government pays attention to traditional medicine, to learn about and preserve it. It tries to help traditional healers. I've been involved with that for the last few years."
Ramirez works with the University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center's STEER (South Texas Environmental Education and Research) program. He teaches one segment of STEER's 30-part month-long environmental medicine/border health elective. "He does a presentation on herbs used for medicinal purposes," said Roger Perales, one of STEER's two environmental health coordinators. The course is open to anyone in medical studies -- medical residents, nursing students at the undergraduate and graduate level, Ph.D. students -- according to Perales. He said that students from all over the country take the elective, some especially for Ramirez' presentation. "Tony is one of the most popular," Perales said. "He's a wealth of information. There's not a lot written on South Texas herbs, and Tony is an expert on that."
Ramirez continues to work on research, attending conferences, working with universities in the US, Mexico, Central America, and Asia. "There's always been an exchange of information," he said. "It's very interesting. You never stop learning."