Traditional herbal medicine a remedy for penny-pinchers

Traditional herbal medicine a remedy for penny-pinchers

By Agus Maryono

PURWOKERTO, Central Java (JP): It is 8:30 p.m. and Kusmiati is
busy mixing a brownish-white herbal powder.

Next to bottles neatly arranged on her table, she dexterously
mixes and stirs the powder in a glass. She adds three chicken
eggs and honey.

"This is your herbal tonic. Have it now, sir. If after five
minutes you don't feel any reaction, please don't come back
here," she advised the customer.

The 53-year-old Purwokerto Lor villager is one of about 200
traditional herbal medicine sellers in Banyumas district. Most of
them sell their herbal medicine on motorcycles or by bike.

Kusmiati has a permanent location. Her kiosk, located in a
shopping compound and across from one owned by her elder sister,
is open from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Kusmiati has sold traditional medicine at the site since 1981.

The mother of five and grandmother of four began in the
business at age 15.

She swore no competition existed with her sister because each
had their own customers.

"My grandmother and my mother, both from Surakarta, were the
first and second generation of traditional herbal medicine
sellers. I am the youngest of 14, all selling this stuff."

The economic crisis has been a blessing to the woman known as
Bu (Mrs.) Kus, with a 50 percent increase in customers at the
kiosk.

"The number of buyers keep increasing, perhaps because many
cannot afford prescription medicine," she said.

Before the crisis, she would serve about 100 people daily. Now
she averages about 150. The number can reach 200 on days at the
beginning or end of a month.

"Before the monetary crisis I could make only Rp 50,000 net a
day, but now I can earn between Rp 75,000 and Rp 100,000."

Prices of her herbal medicine range from less than Rp 1,000 to
Rp 5,000. Some customers drink the medicine at her kiosk, but
others prefer to take it home.

"The cheapest is a concoction for sore muscles or for a cold.
You can have it for Rp 1,000 a glass plus one egg mixed into the
concoction. The most expensive, Rp 5,000 a glass, is the special
concoction to improve a man's virility, which is mixed with three
eggs."

Her customers are an eclectic mix -- civil servants, security
guards, private company employees, pedicab drivers and
prostitutes.

"They (prostitutes) are my long-standing customers. Usually
they need the concoction to relieve them of weariness and pain in
their muscles or to enable them to perform their job well," she
said.

"Some customers come here every night. Others come here once a
week or even once a month. Usually they buy the herbal medicine
in quite a large quantity, sometimes at a value of Rp 200,000 to
Rp 300,000 for one purchase."

Orders by mail come from Medan, Lampung, Bengkulu and
Ujungpandang.

Particularly popular is her family planning medicine,
available at an average price of Rp 35,000 per packet and lasting
for a month.

"This is my own concoction and is a traditional way of family
planning."

Head of the Banyumas office of the National Family Planning
Board, Yayat Suyatno, acknowledged a sharp drop in the number of
participants in the family planning program in the region in the
past year as prices soared.

"The crisis has substantially increased prices of
contraceptives," he said.

Between April and December 1998, he said, there were 222,749
active family planning participants, down from 262,182 in the
same period in 1997. The number does not include private doctors'
records.

"We have tried our best to provide the best service possible,
such as distributing contraceptives free-of-charge through
community health centers, but the number of family planning
participants has continued to drop."

The office has never monitored users of traditional
contraceptives.

"However, if there are many of them, we need to know what kind
of herbal concoction is used and how it is used," Suyatno said.

Kusmiati said she started making the concoction nine years ago
but it gained popularity two years ago.

Kusmiati boasted her concoction was quite effective, but she
warned it should not be taken by people with hypertension and
stomach problems.

A hypertensive woman, she said, would be likely to suffer a
stroke because of the heat-generating materials used, such as
white pepper, galingale and clove. The ingredients are not good
for the stomach, she added.

She has participated in several traditional herbal medicine
festivals both at the regional and national levels. She took
first place every year between 1987 and 1994 in the Central Java
medicine festival. "In 1997 I placed second in the same festival
at the national level."

In the past year she has received orders from health community
centers engaged in a back-to-nature program.

Kusmiati said she used 52 kinds of herbs. Some she cultivates
herself and buys others from other regions, such as Sumatra,
Kalimantan and Irian Jaya.

"I must, for example, buy pasak bumi wood from Kalimantan for
my men's aphrodisiac herbal concoction. Yellow sandalwood and
swallow's nests are usually purchased from Irian Jaya," she said.

"Kumis kucing (a herb with leaves which have diuretic
properties), cimplukan, kecipir (four-sided bean usually eaten as
vegetable) and some other herbs can be found in my own garden."

Kusmiati spends up to Rp 600,000 a week on the materials to
make her medicine. Ingredients for herbal concoctions are
relatively stable in price, with white pepper, used in treatment
of colds or men's aphrodisiacs, the exception.

"White pepper used to cost only Rp 10,000 per kilogram but now
it is Rp 90,000/kg. Luckily I do not depend much on it," she
said.

She puts her concoctions into three main categories: herbal
tonics for men, such as those which may be used as an aphrodisiac
or a cure for impotence; herbal tonic and other medicines for
women, including those to cure leukorrhea; and herbal concoctions
which may be taken by anybody irrespective of their sex, such as
those to combat colds, rheumatism, diabetes and hemorrhoids.

Kusmiati said the secret of her success was simplicity.

"First make sure that you have all the materials for a
particular concoction. Then pound these materials into fine
powder. The next thing to do is to mix them into a concoction.

"Then put it in a glass and mix with boiling water. Now the
herbal medicine is ready to drink," she said.