Page 31 - EBOOK_Jamu: The Ancient Indonesian Art of Herbal Healing

(devil’s dirt leaves) and vinegar for treating severe fever. For sprains the proven remedy was Beras
Kencur and for mumps she used a pilis (compress) of maize and garlic. She had various cough syrup
recipes and if one didn’t cure it then my mother tried another. I still remember many healed us
completely.
“We usually walked barefoot and often came home with badly blistered and scratched feet. In
such instances a sirih (betel) leaf was mixed with some coconut oil, flattened to a pancake shape and
applied to the sore spot. The foot was bandaged and when this was removed a few days later, the cuts
never festered. Some years later, our dentist made an oral rinse using extract of sirih leaves. The
same decoction was used for ulcerating cuts instead of a soda bath. The result was amazing.
“However, my mother was not a gentle healer. If we were cut by splintered glass, a nail or a
sharp piece of bamboo she took the bottle of vinegar and said, ‘Close your eyes.’ We closed our eyes
but instantly opened our mouths to shout when she poured it onto the open wounds! When the
bleeding stopped she would put sirih leaves on the cuts.

“She also had a splendid recipe for dysentery— a mixture of kaki-kuda leaves (small leaves of
horsehoof grass or Indian pennywort) and roots of jambu biji (guava) with a few other bits and
pieces. During an outbreak of amoebic dysentery she made this reliable jamu for friends. A good
friend, a Danish doctor, always opened his ‘clever’ medical book when in doubt. Here he learned
butterburr had an important basic ingredient called yatren which was used in a prescription he gave
his patients. After that he always accepted a small glass of Mama’s curd. Mind you I don’t believe
that kaki-kuda of Begagan is from the Pelargonium family though the shape of its leaf is similar.
“Personally I feel I have received more benefit from the Indonesian remedies than doctor’s
prescriptions. Once I had an unexpected guest in my stomach—a tapeworm. The doctor gave me
medicine on three separate occasions but the worm refused to leave. Then I thought of Mrs
Kloppenburg’s book (see page 16). I read her recipe and peeled 500 kernels of the delicious gurih
fruit (Hydrocotyle asiatica). First time around I had to eat 200 before food and then 300. I felt awful
and dizzy but my guest felt worse and the Kloppenburg remedy won. Quinine was always used to
treat malaria of course, but Mama said ‘Oh no, pule-bast (bark of Alstonia scholaris) is better or
meniran (Phyllanthus niruri) and sambiloto (Andrographis paniculata).’ She always had something
to help if someone was sick no matter if the malaria made them hot or cold. At that time there was
still much malaria and people who caught it shivered so badly they often thought they would die and
tried to get rid of it by staying in the sun but Mama’s medicines were usually best.”

The next important development took place between 1942 to 1944, during
the Japanese Occupation. The Dai Nippon Government supported herbal
medicine by setting up the Indonesian Traditional Medicines Committee in June
1944, under the guidance of Professor Dr Sato, Chief of the Government
Department of Health. The committee then appointed the head of the Indonesian