Terezinha Rêgo

Terezinha de Jesus Almeida Silva Rêgo (5 February 1933 – 3 May 2024) was a Brazilian botanist who was professor, researcher and educator as well as a doctor at the Federal University of Maranhão.

Rêgo worked in teaching botany, in addition to carrying out extensive research on medicinal plants that were subject to extinction. She worked on the study of the Amazonian flora existing in Maranhão, which allowed her to work on the manipulation of medicines used in treatments using plants. This work served as inspiration for the launch of the Maranhão project Farmácia Viva.

Rêgo was a student of Basic Education and Gymnasium at Colégio Rosa Castro, where she began to develop a taste for science and plants. Secondary studies were completed at Liceu Maranhense.

During her undergraduate studies, Rêgo went to peripheral neighborhoods to survey the most common diseases and brought plants that were already known and studied for a certain type of treatment, considering the difficulty of people not having access to a pharmacy, as the medicines were very expensive. The active ingredient was extracted from the selection of plants for the manufacture of natural medicines. There was also a concern about people who came from the countryside and were used to treating illnesses with herbs and could not find the same plants in the capital, having promoted the installation of medicinal gardens.

Rêgo also specialized in phytotherapy at the University of Havana, in Cuba, in addition to having trained in the Emergency Toxicological Chemistry Course, 1970; Biology Course, 1970; Update Course on Medication Analysis, at the "I Maranhão Congress of Pharmacists", 1974; Botanical Systematics Course, 1976; Plant Anatomy Course, 1982, in Brasília.

Recognition and legacy Among Rêgo's main works, three herbal medicines are Essência de Cabacinha, Urucum Syrup and Assa-Peixe Tincture. Cabacinha Essence is the result of 20 years of research, being used to treat sinusitis, rhinitis and adenoid problems through the infusion of cabacinha fruit in alcohol. Rêgo also did research on chanana, a yellow flower that has an energetic substance that can be used to improve the immune system, with its component being used in the treatment of cancer at the Aldenora Bello Hospital, in São Luís.

In the 1990s, she was elected, in Cuba, representative of Ethnobotany in Latin America, from 1990 to 1994.

In 1983, her work was awarded an award at the Ethnobotany Congress in Córdoba, Spain, for her research with the Canela indigenous people, after spending several days in the village in the late 1970s, selecting and classifying 75 plants that were used for medicinal purposes. The work was published by the Brazilian Botanical Society.

The professor was a founding member of the Maranhão Academy of Sciences, coordinated the Maranhão Biotechnology Center (MAR-BIO) and phytotherapy projects in needy communities in Maranhão through the state Farmácia Viva program, which has 32 gardens implemented in state agencies, institutions teaching facilities, schools, quilombola communities and terreiros.