A private national company of natural medicine based on healing plants arises in Cuba.

This small private family apothecary takes up traditional recipes as a viable alternative for the treatment of symptoms and minor conditions.

 The black slaves who fled and settled in remote places in Cuba learned to use herbs and developed remedies to alleviate their diseases that have been transmitted through oral or written tradition and today the use of plants for healing purposes is an important part of the national culture. Especially outside of Havana, I remember that before 1959 the families had medicinal plant postures in the patios of the houses and regularly drank herbal teas to maintain their health, hence the name of the new company La Botica del Cimarron (pharmacy of the slave leaked out)

Within this oral knowledge, transmitted in each generation, what comes from the Cuban aborigines and Chinese emigration is mixed with what came from Africa and much influence from Haiti and French medicine.

The owner of the pharmacy that ideo the business in the city of Trinidad, Las Villas, Cuba is named Ana Elena Rodriguez Cadalso and has a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a master in traditional and natural Medicine.

“One of the challenges - says Ana Elena - is to achieve the sustainability of the products. We have contracts with Urban Agriculture and a farm located in La Sierrita, an ideal place for growing these varieties due to the characteristics of the soil and natural fertilization.

"I collected a lot of information about the stage of maroonage in this region (medical practice among groups of black slaves who escaped in remote places), I looked for all the Unesco regulations on the use of medicinal plants as intangible heritage, I prepared all the technical sheets of the formulations. We have added science, technology and innovation to tradition”.

Of course, what drives Cuba most now to resume the habit of resorting to traditional and natural medicine remedies is the absence, in many cases prolonged, of industrial medicines or allopathies in pharmacies throughout the island due to the fact that, fundamentally, due to Dozens of US embargo regulations prevent the Cuban Ministry of Public Health from financing and credits in international banks for the purchase of reagents, high-tech pharmaceutical equipment, raw materials and medicines.

Based on:

Ana Elena y su botica Remedios del Cimarrón (+fotos) – Escambray