Part four: The use of plants containing coumarins among native Americans of the Southwest and their biomedical relationship to serum albumin polymorphisms¹

This is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented at the fourteenth meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society held February 22–24, 1979, in Memphis, Tennessee. The investigation was supported by a Public Health National Service Award (No. CA‐09035) and sponsored by The Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia as part of their postdoctoral training program. Research was conducted under the directorship of Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg as part of a continuing project in his laboratories concerning serum albumin polymorphisms. I am grateful to Drs. Nina L. Etkin, Walter S. Ogston, J. Bruce Smith, Barbara G. Werner, and Susan I. Wolf for their constructive criticisms and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Abstract

The compilation of an ethnobotanical catalogue of coumarin‐containing plants used by Native Americans who have serum albumin polymorphisms is outlined. Included is a discussion of the presence of albumins Naskapi and Mexico in Native Americans, the pharmacological activity of coumarins, their distribution in the plant kingdom, and the use of such plants for food, medicine, and personal care by American Indians of the Southwest, with special reference to the Navajo.

Notes

This is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented at the fourteenth meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society held February 22–24, 1979, in Memphis, Tennessee. The investigation was supported by a Public Health National Service Award (No. CA‐09035) and sponsored by The Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia as part of their postdoctoral training program. Research was conducted under the directorship of Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg as part of a continuing project in his laboratories concerning serum albumin polymorphisms. I am grateful to Drs. Nina L. Etkin, Walter S. Ogston, J. Bruce Smith, Barbara G. Werner, and Susan I. Wolf for their constructive criticisms and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.