My personal interest in what is broadly called “nature cure” goes back almost twenty years. Like many of those who served during the War in the Mediterranean I found myself with a hangover of the jaundice caused by infected TAB serum. It was Francis Chichester who introduced me to Dr. Gordon Latto, a Scot who had given up a promising career as a surgeon because he became convinced that there were other ways of curing people than the use of the knife.

Thus both my wife and I had some experience and considerable interest in organic medicine when we met Hepe te Heu Heu and his wife Pauline at Tokaanu in North Island, New Zealand, in 1970. This meeting had been arranged by Bernard Fergusson, now Brigadier The Lord Ballantrae, whose family I once heard described as “having made a family occupation of being Governors-General of New Zealand”. He was at a young and impressionable age when his father was Governor so that when he in turn came to that office he had a wonderful rapport with the Maori people partly as a result of being able to speak their language.

My introduction from Bernard Fergusson brought the Paramount Chief of the Tuwharetoa, one of the principal tribes, and a man respected throughout the Maori world, forty miles by car to show us over his own village of Waihi. The stillness 0f the evening was upon us by the time we had had all the totara wood carvings of the Meeting House explained to us and it was as we sat over a drink on the verandah of Hepe te Heu Heu’s house, watching the reflection of the fishing boats in the still waters of Lake Taupo, that the problem of the forests was first raised. These are the indigenous forests and Hepe te Heu Heu was criticising the improvidence of the men who always wanted to fell and fell, as though the trees of the Maori lands were a sort of widow’s cruse that would support them for ever.

With forests of our own, this made a deep impression. Later, when they had accepted our invitation to stay on and dine with us at the hotel, my wife raised the question of the medical uses to which the trees were put by his people. I remember we sat long over our coffee listening to first one, then the other, giving examples. Often they were not complete examples; either they had forgotten the particular tree or plant used in the cure, or the full details of the method of preparation or treatment. But the point of the stories was always the same - that the cure was effective.

One particular cure has remained in our minds because it concerned Hepe te Heu Heu himself; not the details, but the fact that an old Maori cure succeeded where the best of New Zealand doctors had failed. He had some problem with his back as I remember it, I think as a result of an injury, and when modern forms of treatment failed to alleviate it he turned to the old cures of his people. This involved, as is often the case, a specially prepared poultice of leaves and the application of heat - his body being completely encased in the leaf poultice so that he was in what amounted to a sort of medicinal sauna, I think for twenty four hours or even longer. And his wife also referred to the curing of wounds and bone injuries by treatment somewhat similar.

The Maoris differ from most other races in that it is the old women, not the men, who seem to be the medical practitioners. These wise women are now a dying race, and though memory is listed in Maori carvings as a cardinal virtue, the impact of a technological age, in which the Maoris are striving to emulate the Pakeha civilisation, has had the effect of persuading most of them that their traditional medicine is inferior. Both my wife and I spent some time trying to convince these two leaders of their people that this was not true, that in many of the most advanced countries there was a very real and growing interest in indigenous medicines that derive from nature.

David Mackie of Collins was with us at the time and we pressed him very urgently to follow this up. However, a book on indigenous medicines requires a rather special author, one who is knowledgeable, dedicated and an able enough writer to make it interesting. Not surprisingly the project hung fire. And then suddenly, out of the blue, came Miss Christina Macdonald’s manuscript.

Once the decision to publish had been taken, the editor, knowing my interest in the subject, sent the typescript to me here in Suffolk. It is, of course, of primary interest to New Zealanders since they have ready access to the medicines described. Nevertheless, since our meeting with Hepe te Heu Heu, there has been a remarkable acceleration in the interest shown in natural cures by the more progressive consultants. lt has even been suggested to me that this interest could be on the point of mushrooming into general practice.

However, it has to be remembered that many of the medicines in general use today are, in fact, synthetic forms of plant remedies developed by pharmaceutical concerns to meet mass demand. To take but one example from this book - if it were general practice throughout the world to speed the setting of fractures by bathing with water in which the crushed bark of the kowhai tree had been steeped, the plantations of this laburnum necessary to meet the demand would cover most of the east coast of New Zealand.

A more realistic assessment of the growth of interest in nature cures would be that there will be a gradual acceptance of individual cures, and that those accepted for general use will be from a variety of different countries. In this context Medicines 0f the Maori should have an impact beyond New Zealand. And perhaps it will also lead ultimately to the replacement of some of the Maori’s dwindling heritage of indigenous forest. At least, that is what I would hope.