TV Reviews : ‘Pharmacy’ Paints Vague Picture of Forest Destruction

Medicine men using native plants to cure illness and prevent miscarriages or conception? Mere superstition, right?

Not really, as more and more scientists, doctors and pharmaceutical companies are realizing.

Unfortunately, as shown in “Jungle Pharmacy” (tonight at 6:50 p.m. and again Sunday at 8 p.m. on the TBS cable channel), the South American rain forest that holds the most promising plants may be chopped and burned down before most of its trees, bushes, vines and flowers can be examined. (So far, only 1% of potential medicinal plants have been studied, the program states.)

Along with the forests go the beliefs, culture and secret knowledge of the tribes that live within them. Or lived. “Civilization” and its own diseases have wiped out many.

Television is doing its part in telling the sad stories of deforestation and culture destruction, as well as the encouraging one of ethnobotany--the increasingly important science recently covered by “National Geographic Explorer” and a PBS documentary. It’s too bad, however, that the important information in “Jungle Pharmacy” is delivered in a rather vague, sleepy manner. The program is worth watching, but you may need a couple of cups of that old, unendangered South American brew--coffee--to stay with it.