A Turmeric Anecdote

A case of traditional medicine in action

A turmeric anecdote

Years ago, I worked with a veteran of the Vietnam war. New to my life experience, was that this was not a GI, but ex Viet-Cong. In fact, a war hero no less (I’ve seen the articles and he wasn’t lying). The stories he told and his proto-biography (of which I still have a copy somewhere) was utterly, utterly chilling.         

Early in our acquaintance he told me that he had been shot. I was still at this point trying to work out how much veracity there was in his claims. But he showed me his back and he was not wrong.

I had a military upbringing and I know bullet holes when I see them. He was raked with M16 fire. 5 scars running up his back. The lowest scars were about 2 – 3 inches to the right of his spine. He told me that the medical tent was about quarter of a mile away through the jungle from the rest of the compound to limit the spread of infectious diseases should they become an issue.

Whilst he was laid up, face down, unable to move and facing a very unlikely prospect of recovery and almost certain paralysis: the camp was attacked by the American military and razed. The medical tent was not found. The staff abandoned it, walking off through the jungle to another compound.

He laid there, face down with the cries of his fellow patients constant around him. How long? He didn’t know; though certainly more than a day. He came to on one occasion to find the tent populated by members of a local tribe presumably out scavenging. This area, accessible only by air or boat, was weeks of walking from any seriously populated and accessible areas. 

These tribespeople assessed the injured and ill that were there and those that they could help they did. They set up shop for weeks in the abandoned camp and surrounding area. In his case, he told me that several times a day they would administer a paste to the sites of the wounds he had suffered.

It did the job (clearly pretty well, because he could walk just fine). He told me that the stuff they used was a mixture that was primarily made from a root that looks like ginger but wasn’t ginger but smaller and he didn’t know its name.

I asked if it was turmeric root and he said he had no idea. When I next went into work, I took some turmeric root in. He saw it and got somewhat emotional exclaiming that this was the stuff and demanded to know where I got it. I told him “Pretty much any ethnic shop in Manchester”.