Interest and limitation of a global ethnopharmacological survey.

Since 1983 an ethnopharmacological research called the TRAMIL Programme (Applied Research on the Traditional Popular Medicine in the Caribbean Basin) has been underway in several countries of the West Indies and Central America. The programme, which started in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic, has now extended to Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela. The most important goal of the programme is to evaluate the traditional use of medicinal herbs in order to help unprivileged populations from this geographical area. The study is approached from the point of view of solutions to everyday health problems, rather than as a simple catalogue of plant or traditional remedy usage. An appropriate methodology is employed, including inventory and botanical determination, bibliographical research, study of the unknown species through analytical, toxicological and/or pharmacological methods and transmission of controlled information which ensures the value of natural medication to the public. The TRAMIL Programme leads to protection of cultural heritage and integration of effective and secure traditional remedies in primary health care.