Pieroni et al. investigated the use of traditional Turkish folk medicine and changes in materia medica amongst first generation Turkish migrants living in the urban environment of Cologne, Germany.

Field research conducted over a 24-week period in 2003 and 2004 consisted of interviewing and holding focus groups of randomly selected Turkish participants about their use of traditional remedies. The authors obtained prior informed consent from survey participants and followed ethical guidelines established by the American Anthropological Association and the International Society of Ethnobiology. They collected voucher specimens of relevant dried and fresh plant material and identified them with the assistance of Turkish botanists. The researchers then compared field data with literature on traditional Turkish phytotherapy and evidence-based clinical German phytotherapy.

Apart from presenting a table outlining the data on 79 botanical taxa, 115 plant-based preparations and 167 phytotherapeutical uses and selected animal and mineral remedies named in the interviews, the article provides additional detail about three interesting plant remedies: aerial parts of Sideritis species, Pistacia terebinthus fruits and Peganum harmala fruits and seeds.

Analysis of the results revealed that (1) a quarter of the treatments consisted of 'medicinal food'; (2) women were more knowledgeable than men about plant uses, and (3) most of the material for the traditional medicine was imported to Germany through 'unofficial' means or bought in Turkish shops in Cologne. Local cultivation and wild harvest of the plants in Germany were very minimal, but most survey participants gathered wild herbs or bought them in markets in Turkey. This challenges assumptions about how migrants source material for food and medicine. Only one third of the phytotherapeutical uses reported had been previously recorded in ethnobotanical research conducted in Turkey, and only 9% of the medicinal uses reported in this study had been acknowledged by the modern school of German phytotherapy. Although the researchers comment on the importance of understanding the cultural significance of plants, they limit their analysis to the frequency of mention of a remedy.

The assimilation process of the migrants in their host country is discussed along with the indigenization and de-contexualization of German phytotherapy as it is incorporated in novel ways into the Turkish migrants' materia medica. This research points to the need for more investigation into the effects of simultaneous use of traditional and conventional medicines among migrants, and to the mutual transmission of ethnopharmaceutical knowledge between migrants and host country populations.

Prepared by Megan Glore, edited by Gary Martin