Most staff of the Health and Education Departments, who live in bush ccnmunities already know of the "Traditional Aboriginal Medicines Project", but far those who have recently joined, it is a project run jointly by the N.T. Departments of Health, Primary Production and Education to collect and record information on the traditional remedies used by the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory.
The eventual aim is to produce a "pharmacopoeia" of Aboriginal medicines, which would give the origin, preparation, use, effect and chemical ingredients of each item, but it will be many years before this is complete, mainly due to the difficulties of analysis and tracing any known chemical details.
We feel that the information which has been collected so far, even though far from complete for any item, should be circulated, particularly to the many people who have helped to collect information and samples.