Plotkin addresses crowd at WWII Museum

By ALAN SMASON

Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin delivered a major lecture at the Boeing Freddom Pavilion of the National World War II Museum on Thursday, September 11, the 13th anniversary of the attacks on America.

Plotkin, a native New Orleanian, spoke on “How Plants Helped To Win the War,” appearing before an estimated crowd of 100 World War II enthusiasts. A co-founder and president of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) that advocates for indigenous lands and peoples, he theorized that several products found in nature were either critical to the success of the Allies or – because of their lack – were contributing factors to the onset of hostilities by the Axis forces.

Before addressing the modern era, Plotkin took audience members back to earlier times when warfare was fought in close combat and with powerful navies. The common resource utilized by ancient armies was wood. “How did the Greeks fight their wars?” he asked rhetorically. “Their ships were made of wood. Their spears were made of wood, and their shields were made of wood. It was the same things with the Romans.”

Navies had until the 20^th century been fashioned almost exclusively from wood, he pointed out. All of the use of wood to cook fires, build ships and form weapons created tremendous deforestation, which impacted created demand for nations to find forests to fuel their needs.

Think back to the Boston Tea Party at the time of the American Revolution, he advised his audience. “The real reason behind it was wood, not tea,” he said.

In particular, the British desired to possess the tall white pine forests of the Northeast to build the masts and to create the naval craft to maintain their hold on their worldwide empire, Plotkin maintained.

Foodstuffs like buckwheat and citrus fruit were determined by indigenous peoples to be successful in fighting disease like scurvy. The British stocked their ships with the more hearty of these fruits and thus took on the nickname “limeys.” Today, Plotkin pointed out, we know they work because of their high content of vitamin C.

Treating wounds of soldiers created demand for medicines and dressings. “Two of the great medical plants – cotton and opium – they were in use thousands of years ago,” he stated.

Another product that had a major impact on World War II was natural rubber, which became even more valuable after Charles Goodyear developed the process of vulcanization that made it more readily usable for waging war and as a means of transportation

This demand for South American rubber production had a disastrous effect on native populations. “Indians were kidnapped, enslaved and killed to increase the demand of rubber,” Plotkin said.

“One Sherman tank had a half a ton of rubber,” he quipped

Rubber production was so important that President Roosevelt set up a National Rubber Board to oversee it and to manage the various drug-resistant varieties of natural rubber.

Plotkin delivered an almost unheard of fact related to the World War II Pacific campaign. “More American soldiers were taken out by malaria than they were by Japanese soldiers,” he said.”

Indigenous people discovered the benefits of quinine, a derivative of tree bark that prevents malaria. Its production was highly desired by both the Allies and the Japanese during the war.

Anti-infectives like naturally occurring myrrh and penicillin and those created in the laboratory like prontosil were especially important antibiotics used for treating disease contracted by soldiers and sailors fighting during World War II

“Every American medic had penicillin in their pouch,” Plotkin said. “That was a powerful weapon.”

“The Japanese move into Southeast Asia was to take over the rubber, quinine and oil production,” Plotkin averred

To illustrate his point, he recalled the story of I-52, a Japanese submarine sunk during the war by the Allies, which was found and raised in 1994. The ship’s hold was filled with gold, quinine and rubber, he said.

Antibiotics and anti-infectives, which owe much of their discovery to that of indigenous medicine men and shamens, may have had a major effect on how injured soldiers were able to heal and return to the battlefield.

“How ironic if Stone Age Indians were able to provide the means for 21st century warriors carrying high tech weapons how to heal themselves!” he concluded.