I'm
ill! Get me the Chocolate doctor How chocolate
is the new wonder drug...
Not even Law and Order would attempt
to capture this mess...This is an unbelievable
twist of fate!!!
The medicinal use of cacao, or chocolate,
both as a primary remedy and as a vehicle
to deliver other medicines, originated in
the New World and diffused to Europe in
the mid 1500s. These practices originated
among the Olmec, Maya and Mexica (Aztec).
The word cacao is derived from Olmec and
the subsequent Mayan languages (kakaw);
the chocolate-related term cacahuatl is
Nahuatl (Aztec language), derived from Olmec/Mayan
etymology.
Early colonial era documents included instructions
for the medicinal use of cacao. The Badianus
Codex (1552) noted the use of cacao flowers
to treat fatigue, whereas the Florentine
Codex (1590) offered a prescription of cacao
beans, maize and the herb tlacoxochitl (Calliandra
anomala) to alleviate fever and panting
of breath and to treat the faint of heart.
Subsequent 16th to early 20th century manuscripts
produced in Europe and New Spain revealed
>100 medicinal uses for cacao/chocolate.
Three consistent roles can be identified:
1) to treat emaciated patients to gain weight;
2) to stimulate nervous systems of apathetic,
exhausted or feeble patients; and 3) to
improve digestion and elimination where
cacao/chocolate countered the effects of
stagnant or weak stomachs, stimulated kidneys
and improved bowel function. Additional
medical complaints treated with chocolate/cacao
have included anemia, poor appetite, mental
fatigue, poor breast milk production, consumption/tuberculosis,
fever, gout, kidney stones, reduced longevity
and poor sexual appetite/low virility.
Chocolate paste was a medium used to administer
drugs and to counter the taste of bitter
pharmacological additives. In addition to
cacao beans, preparations of cacao bark,
oil (cacao butter), leaves and flowers have
been used to treat burns, bowel dysfunction,
cuts and skin irritations.
