A plant booth at the Iloilo Provincial Captiol ground is displaying potted jatropha pudagrica which the owners and the vendor sells off as KOREAN GINSENG.
As an agronomist, I was alarmed because J. pudagrica is as lethal as its more popular cousin, the J. curcas or kasla/ tuba tuba in Ilonggo. Its nuts and sap contain curcin a phytotoxin similar to ricin found in castor bean. You may look up the info on the following links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha_podagrica, http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/plant/jpoc.htm, and
Podagrica is a native of tropical America and had spread around the world as an ornamental. It gained some popularity or rather notoriety in the mid-1980s when some unscrupulous plant traders saw their similarity to the Korean ginseng root and passed podagrica as ginseng.
We first encountered podagrica in the early 1980s when I was duped into buying a growing plant for a hefty P500.00 where the dollar exchange rate was about 1:16. Not content with the seller's information, I dug into the archives of UP Los Banos when I had a chance to study there. I also saw a specimen growing in the herbarium and immediately I inquired from the person in charge to confirm my research. Podagrica indeed is a cousin of j. curcas and contain the same levels of curcin.
To quote http://www.plantoils.in/portal/jatropha/abo/cha/cha.html: Poisoning from ingestion of the seeds of the Jatropha plant is well known in veterinary practice and autopsy findings include, severe gastro-enteritis, nephritis, myocardial degeneration, haemagglutination, and subepicardial and subendocardial haemorrhages as well as renal subcortical and subpleural bleeding.
In some instances, one gets poisoned with as few as three seeds eaten. The plant's swollen body or vasculum emits sap which contains curcin. This swollen body of the plant is popular among the uninformed users who extract the sap by putting this inside a liquor bottle and pouring in brandy or whisky, steeping the roots and body for a few weeks before drinking it just like the practice with Korean ginseng.
“One study found a high mortality rate in mice fed 50% and 40% J. curcas. The important symptoms of poisoning included diarrhoea, inability to keep normal posture, depression and lateral recumbency. The degree of the pathological changes observed in the small intestines, liver, heart, kidneys, and lungs was related to the level of Jatropha in the diet. The most marked pathological changes were catarrhal enteritis, erosions of the intestinal mucosa, congestion and haemorrhages in small intestines, heart and lungs and fatty changes in the liver and kidneys.”
The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health should look into these things where exotic plants and animals are introduced into the city and province as ornamentals and pets without some studies as to their effects and implication not only to the environment but to the health and economy of the people.
By the way, the said booth was also advertising their peanut products to contain ginseng. We hope that they had bought Korean Ginseng powder to add to their peanuts and did not extract the sap of the podagrica. If it is the latter, DOH and DTI should act on this and order the said enterprise to cease and desist from further adding podagrica as a major ingredient.
As Aesop once wrote: a little learning is a dangerous thing!
