Curandero: Ethno-Psychotherapy & Curanderismo Hispanic Mental Health in the 21st Century, is the product of more than 50 years of the study of curanderismo and Hispanic mental health. In this book, Dr. Zavaleta examines curanderismo and the folk beliefs carried by immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. In the United States, the Hispanic population is notoriously underserved in both physical and mental health care. In Curandero, Dr. Zavaleta reviews the history of curanderismo, beginning with pre-Columbian populations, and traces the development of curanderismo over the past 500 years. He also examines the history and practice of psychiatry and the emergence of ethno-psychotherapy as well as psychiatry’s historic failure to incorporate culture in the treatment of the mental health of Hispanic populations. Dr. Zavaleta seeks to introduce curanderismo to psychiatry with the intention of incorporating its important aspects in the treatment of Hispanic mental health.

Eliseo Torres, known as "Cheo," grew up in the Corpus Christi area of Texas and knew, firsthand, the Mexican folk healing practiced in his home and neighborhood. Later in life, he wanted to know more about the plants and rituals of curanderismo. Torres's story begins with his experiences in the Mexican town of Espinazo, the home of the great curandero El Niño Fidencio (1899-1939), where Torres underwent life-changing spiritual experiences. He introduces us to some of the major figures in the tradition, discusses some of the pitfalls of teaching curanderismo, and concludes with an account of a class he taught in which curanderos from Cuernavaca, Mexico, shared their knowledge with students. Part personal pilgrimage, part compendium of medical knowledge, this moving book reveals curanderismo as both a contemplative and a medical practice that can offer new approaches to ancient problems. From Curandero ". . . for centuries, rattlesnakes were eaten to prevent any number of conditions and illnesses, including arthritis and rheumatism. In Mexico and in other Latin American countries, rattlesnake meat is actually sold in capsule form to treat impotence and even to treat cancer. Rattlesnake meat is also dried and ground and sprinkled into open wounds and body sores to heal them, and a rattlesnake ointment is made that is applied to aches and pains as well."

The practice of curanderismo, or Mexican American folk medicine, is part of a historically and culturally important health care system deeply rooted in native Mexican healing techniques. This is the first book to describe the practice from an insider's point of view, based on the authors' three-year apprenticeships with curanderos (healers). Robert T. Trotter and Juan Antonio Chavira present an intimate view of not only how curanderismo is practiced but also how it is learned and passed on as a healing tradition. By providing a better understanding of why curanderos continue to be in demand despite the lifesaving capabilities of modern medicine, this text will serve as an indispensable resource to health professionals who work within Mexican American communities, to students of transcultural medicine, and to urban ethnologists and medical anthropologists.

In Medicinal Plants of the Borderlands: A Bilingual Resource Guide, anthropologist Dr. Antonio "Tony" Zavaleta shares medicinal plant information from his lifetime of experiences with Mexican folk healers known as curandero/a(s). Consulting with their patients, healers issue recetas, handwritten prescribed orders for medicinal plants to be filled at hierberias, herb stores. While many of the more popular plants are well known to patient and healer, many hundreds are less known. Additionally, patients and shop attendants know little or nothing about the wide variety of plants they sell. Zavaleta searched for specific English translations of plant names in order to better understand their respective characteristics as they correspond with various ailments with limited success. Bilingual material on medicinal plants is simply not readily available. Over the years he compiled an impressive list of medicinal plants including English and Spanish names. That list forms the basis for this book. In a semi-bilingual format, five primary cross-referenced categories of medicinal plant information are provided: 1) English Name; 2) Spanish Name; 3) Botanical Name; 4) Properties (of pharmacognosy) which lists their uses; and finally, 5) Used to Treat, which lists a variety of conditions they are believed to or used to treat. Uniquely informative, this resource guide catalogues more than 600 medicinal plants which are either native to the border or traditionally used by curandero/a(s) and draws from the highly informative formularies and pharmacopoeias of the United States and Mexico and other primary sources. Previously not-readily-available data are compiled here to supplement the work of practitioners and researchers as well as serving as an invaluable tool for students of complementary and alternative medicine, botanists, home gardeners and native-plant enthusiasts. In addition, it's a publishing-first for an ethno-botanical book offering detailed English-to-Spanish translations and vice versa."