HerbalEGram: Volume 10, Issue 7, July 2013

In festivities marking the opening of Wild Medicine, a major new exhibition about medicinal plants, Andrew Weil, MD, the world-renowned leader in the field of integrative medicine, was recently named the first recipient of The New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) Henry Hurd Rusby Award for Excellence in Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine.

Dr. Weil, a Harvard-trained physician, botanist, and founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, was recognized for his distinguished contributions to the fields of ethnobotany and integrative medicine and for advancing the medical profession’s and the general public’s understanding of the importance of beneficial plants in clinical care.

The award presentation, which included remarks by Dr. Weil, was one of the highlights of the May 18 opening of Wild Medicine: Healing Plants Around the World, Featuring The Italian Renaissance Garden, NYBG’s multifaceted exhibition about the science, history, and culture of medicinal plants.¹

The award is named for Henry Hurd Rusby, MD, a botanist and physician who helped found The New York Botanical Garden in 1891 and was appointed its first Curator of Economic Botany in 1898. Dr. Rusby graduated from Columbia Medical School in 1884, and, shortly thereafter, went on a two-year expedition to South America to study medicinal and useful plants, one of the six major expeditions he would make during his career. Many of Dr. Rusby’s botanical explorations are detailed in his classic book, Jungle Memories (McGraw-Hill, 1933).

Dr. Rusby introduced the topic of economic botany to decades of NYBG visitors through the Economic Botany Museum he created in 1898, which consisted of 210 display cases of economically important plants from around the world. Today that collection is curated in NYBG’s William and Lynda Steere Herbarium and still used for teaching and research. This is the first time that NYBG, through its Institute of Economic Botany, has presented this award, which is not an annual event, but intended to honor very significant contributions to the field of ethnobotany.

In many ways, Dr. Weil’s career parallels that of Dr. Rusby’s. “I like to think that I built on Rusby's legacy,” said Dr. Weil in an email to HerbalEGram (May 22, 2013). “Rusby was a botanist/physician, as I am. There are not many of us. My botanical background was a foundation of my work in integrative medicine.”

Following graduation from Harvard College in 1964 with a concentration in botany and ethnobotany under the mentorship of the noted Amazonian ethnobotanist Professor Richard Evans Schultes, Dr. Weil graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1968 and spent five years traveling, engaged in the study of indigenous medicine and psychoactive plants. He made many scholarly contributions to the world’s knowledge of the relationships between plants and people, and as Dr. Michael J. Balick, PhD, the Garden’s vice president for botanical research and the director of the Garden’s Institute of Economic Botany, noted, “Dr. Weil has been a respected ethnobotanist and physician for many decades, spanning both worlds and in many ways helping to unite these two fields. As a result of his tireless efforts as researcher, educator, and communicator, there are, today, thousands of practitioners who have been trained with a specialty in integrative medicine, and this has changed the landscape of healthcare delivery.”

In presenting the H.H. Rusby Award and inaugurating the Wild Medicine exhibition, Dr. Balick summarized Dr. Weil’s accomplishments:

“In recognition of your extraordinary contributions to ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, from your earliest days as a botanist exploring some of the most remote and biologically and culturally fascinating regions of the world in search of knowledge about the relationship between plants, people, and culture, through your decades of teaching and training integrative medical practitioners to appreciate the benefits of botanicals, to your charismatic and tireless efforts to educate the public about the value of nature and plants in wellness and health, it is my great pleasure, on behalf of the Board of Managers and Staff of The New York Botanical Garden, to honor you today with the first Henry Hurd Rusby Award for Excellence in Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine.”

Dr. Weil, who has received numerous awards and accolades throughout his accomplished career, said that he was honored to be the first recipient of the H.H. Rusby Award. “I love the NYBG, am delighted to be associated with it, and support their strong work in economic botany,” said Dr. Weil. “I haven't received awards for excellence in ethnobotany. That means a lot to me, especially since Dr. Rusby was a hero of my mentor, Dr. Richard Evans Schultes. Mike Balick and I were both students of Schultes, and this was a wonderful opportunity to be together and help open the outstanding Wild Medicine Exhibition that Dr. Balick created.”