Traditional medicine in the Pomak community, Western Thrace, Greece – Current role and future trends

Currently, there is a renewed interest in traditional medicines both from and academic and industrial perspective. Due to urbanisation, industrialisation and intensification of agriculture, most European populations have very little, if any, contact with traditional, orally transmitted 'folk knowledge' related to the medicinal use of plants. Throughout Europe, it is mostly native, often economically and socially marginalised, rural groups that preserved this kind of knowledge. In most cases, no written tradition exists and the oral transmission of knowledge is lost due to the dramatic socioeconomic changes (immigration, loss of language skills, etc.). Such a case is the Pomak community in Western Thrace, Greece, where our research takes place. These socioeconomic processes considerably endanger the vitality and continuity of their tradition, including medicinal practices. We used structured and unstructured interviews and participant observation in order to assess, among others, the current knowledge on medicinal and wild food plants among the adult population. Amongst the most widely used species are Urtica dioica, Hypericum perforatum, Origanum vulgare, Anthemis tinctoria, Geranium maculatum. In the second phase of our research, we administered questionnaires to secondary school students of the region. We wanted to assess to which degree the traditional medicinal knowledge documented among the elder population has been conserved and transmitted to the youngest generation. The results clearly indicate the disruption of the oral transmission line within the community regarding traditional medicine knowledge and practice. Far from being a local matter, these results are alarming for the 'natural products' scientific community that will inevitably be affected by this degradation.