Ethnomedicine of Menstruation in Rural Dominica, West Indies

In Bwa Mawego, a village on Dominica’s east coast, dysmenorrhea, delayed menses, and menorrhagia are prevalent menstrual troubles that may require herbal medicine.  We hypothesize that cultural agreement on ethnobotanical treatments (1) reflects their locally perceived ethnophysiological efficacy, and that (2) salient plants contain bioactive compounds appropriate for the menstrual conditions for which Dominicans employ the plants.  Participant-observation, focus groups, and unstructured interviews provided qualitative data regarding explanatory models of menstrual conditions and their treatments.  Quantitative ethnobotanical data came from freelist tasks with fifty-four adults.  Mean salience values calculated from freelisted data reveal that Cinnamomum verum (Lauraceae), Mentha suaveolens (Lamiaceae), Pimenta racemosa (Myrtaceae) and Sphagneticola trilobata (Asteraceae) are used to treat dysmenorrhea and delayed menses.  The only remedy reported for menorrhagia was S. trilobata. All four plants contain analgesic, anti-nociceptive, and anti-inflammatory properties. In Dominican menstrual problems there is correspondence between cultural consensus, bioactivity, and ethnophysiology including humoral theory.