Hi Meg!
Hope all's well with
you. I continue to enjoy receiving LareDOS each month.
It arrives with a thick whump on my desk, lots of
pages and content, and I often skim through it over
lunch, looking for stories about wildlife and environment.
I enjoy particularly your front of the publication
publisher's pieces about your ranch.
Tom Harvey
News and Information Branch
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Re: Tony Ramirez and
Mark Blumenthal
As a pharmacist I
have always enjoyed reading "The Medicine Man"
by Tony Ramirez. I had the pleasure of joining Tony
for a few public talks on the benefits of herbal medicine
some time back. I have great respect for Tony and
his extensive knowledge of herbal plants. In your
April issue I saw a letter by Markos Blumenthal of
ABC (American Botanical Council) of Austin, Texas.
I met Mark in October 1995 while attending a two-week
seminar held in the Amazon region of Peru. Mark was
familiar to some Laredoans when he owned a wholesale
natural foods and botanicals distributorship in Austin.
Among his customers was the late Ruth Hatch, a local
pharmacist who had a health food store downtown. I
knew Ruth welland she always had an opinion or two
about something.
Mark was one of the organizers for the seminars in
Peru. For two weeks we participated in both day and
night seminars in the Amazon jungle. Speakers ranged
from professors of pharmacy from Duke and Purdue University,
local shamans, medical doctors, and pharmacists. Our
travels took us from deep in the Amazon basin to the
mountain region of Machu Picchu. I will always remember
those two weeks, for they gave me a greater understanding
of the value of natural medicine. What we consider
here as alternative medicine in areas like the Amazon
basin herbal medicine is considered primary care.
We have a rich history locally and in the South Texas
region in the use of herbal cures. May we never lose
in touch with this great heritage and thanks to men
like Tony Ramirez I hope we never will. Tony, we thank
you.
Dario Gutierrez, Jr.
registered pharmacist
