Understanding the Exchange of Medicinal Plant Information during the Mission Period in California: It’s Relevance to Current Barriers Facing the Exchange of Indigenous Medicinal Plant Information Today

Although many modern medicines have been derived from the knowledge of the use of plants by indigenous people, we believe there are more cures known to indigenous people that are yet to be communicated to the modern world. The main barriers to communication about these plants are a sense of the part of many members of the developed world that indigenous people are primitive, and their knowledge of medicine is rudimentary and fear on the part of indigenous people that their intellectual property will be taken without proper compensation.