NEONELSONIA—A COLOMBIAN 
FOLK MEDICINE 
BY 
Menvin LEE Brisrot. 
In August 1960, I studied the varieties of arracacha, the 
umbelliferous Arracacia wanthorhiza Bancroft, in the 
Colombian Andes. On one occasion during the study, 
in the Indian village of Sibundoy (near Pasto) in the 
Comisaria del Putumayo, asmall boy led me to a growth 
of what he termed ‘‘wild arracachas.’’ It was a coarse 
tangle of an umbelliferous plant clambering over shrubs 
in an area of 15 square meters. Since this ‘‘wild arraca- 
cha’’ appeared to me to be very closely related to the 
genus I was studying, if not the same, I collected speci- 
mens in flower and fruit. When I took them back to one 
of the older Sibundoy Indians, Juan Pedro Chindoy, he 
called the plant ‘‘ingo-sha-hush’’ in the Kamsa language. 
Utilization 
The man told me that the plant is used as a remedy 
for swelling and inflammation of the upper region of the 
intestine (hinchazones intestinales swperiores). Further- 
more, he said that it is employed by all Sibundoy women 
immediately after childbirth ‘‘to prevent their death.’ 
In both cases, the preparation and dosage is the same: 
the leaves and stems are boiled well, then some sugar and 
ten drops of a distilled alcoholic beverage (trago) are 
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