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Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1929, James A. "Jim" Duke is a Phi
Beta Kappa PhD (botany, 1961) graduate of the University of North
Carolina. Jim, following military service, undertook postdoctoral
activities at Washington University and Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis,
Missouri. There he began studies of neotropical ethnobotany, his overriding
interest to this day. From 1963 to 1965, Duke was ecologist with the USDA
(Beltsville, Maryland), joining Battelle Columbus Laboratories (1965-71)
for ecological and ethnobotanical studies in Panama and Colombia. During
this formative period, Duke lived with various ethnic groups, closely
observing their deep dependence on forest products. The first of some
twenty books, his Isthmian Ethnobotanical Dictionary catalogs
hundreds of Isthmian plants and their uses. Rejoining USDA in 1971, Duke
had assignments relating to crop diversification, medicinal plants, and
energy plant studies in developing countries. A popular lecturer on the
subjects of ethnobotany, herbs, medicinal plants, and new crops and their
ecology, he has taped dozens of TV and radio shows. There is a good
biographic sketch in the Sep/Oct-1991 issue of EastWest magazine. The
National Agriculture Library has a video history of Dr. Duke's career and
development. Duke grows dozens of interesting plants on his six-acre
farmette (Herbal Vineyard) with his wife and illustrator, Peggy. On Sept.
30, 1995, he retired after 30 years with the USDA.Before retiring, Dr.
Duke brought his Father Nature's Farmacy database online at USDA. It is
now, in Duke's retirement, one of the most frequently consulted database
with the Plant Genome Project at USDA. The URL address is:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke
Duke has already doubled the data content in the interactive database he
maintains as Director, Duke's Herbal Vineyard, Inc. The database is
especially useful for determining biological activities and healing
potentials of food ands herbs.
Fluent in Spanish, Duke has studied and/or lectured widely,
concentrating on tropical ecology, medical botany, and crop
diversification. Widely travelled, Duke "cut his tropical eye teeth" in
Panama where he was resident from 1966-68. While working on an
encyclopedia of economic plants, he has collaborated with the National
Cancer Institute on both their AIDS and cancer-screening programs and
their Designer Food Program (to prevent cancer). His data bases on the
ecology, nutritional content, folk medicinal uses and chemical
constituents of economic plants are being widely utilized. Duke's major
goal lately is to reverse the disdain for alternative medicines in the
US, where, as in the Third World, a larger and larger percentage of the people
can no longer afford first-world pharmaceuticals. Duke has a contagious
interest in natural foods and nutritional approaches to preventive
medicine. Between 1990-1992, Duke was advising the Designer Food Program
of the NIH, then under the aegis of Dr. Herb Pierson. Lately Duke has
been very active in ecotourism in Latin America and is teaching such
themes as renewable rainforest products in the rainforests of Amazonian
Peru. He has become an expert in the field of non-timber forest products.
With an aggregate of more then five years in Latin America, Duke has traversed parts of Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guadelupe, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. In Asia, he has had lengthy visits in China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and quick looks at Burma, Japan, Laos and Vietnam. In the Middle East, he has worked in Iran, Israel, Kuwait, and Syria, with quick looks at the Mediterranean countries of Egypt, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. His only tours in tropical Africa include Madagascar, Sao Tome, The Ivory Coast and Zambia. Recently he has been teaching field ethnobotany regularly in Amazonian Peru, Belize and Costa Rica (mostly in the winter) and in the Maine northwoods (in summer only). In 1997, similar tours are planned for Kenya and Uganda.
Jim belongs to the American Botanical Council (Trustee), American
Herb Association (Life), American Society of Pharmacognosy, Association
for Tropical Biology (Life), Council of Agricultural Science and
Technology (Cornerstone Life Member), Herb Research Foundation
(Advisor), International Association of Plant Taxonomists (Life),
International Society for Tropical Root Crops (Life), International Weed
Science Society (Life), Organization for Tropical Studies (Life), Oriental
Healing Arts Society (Honorary), Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Smithsonian
Institution (Collaborator), Society for Conservation Biology (Life),
Society for Economic Botany (Life), Southern Appalachian Botanical Club
(Life), and the Washington Academy of Sciences (Life).
Dr. Duke serves as a Senior Scientific Adviser to Nature's Herbs and
is on the board of trustees of the American Botanical Council, Director,
Botanical Products International (Hakalau Hawaii) and Microbotanica, the
Scientific Advisory Team of Shaman Pharmaceuticals (San Francisco),
Medical Advisory Board of Herbalife (Los Angeles), and serves as Medicinal
Plant Adviser to Reader's Digest and Time-Life. He also serves as an
advisor or unpaid consultant to ACEER (Amazon Center for Environmental
Education and Research), Alternative Medicine Digest, American Health,
the Center for Alternative Medicine in Women's Health (NY), Center for
Mind-Body Medicine, Center for Plant Conservation, Herb Research
Foundation, International Expeditions, National College of Phytotherapy,
Rodale Press, Rheumatology Unit (NIH); Supplements/ Dietary Advisory
Board (NIH, Bethesda MD), Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complementary
Medicine, TRAMIL, and the World Health Organization (Traditional
Medicine Program ). He is CEO of a newly formed consulting firm, Duke's Herbal
Vineyard Inc, where he is writing the newsletter, News from the
Herbal Village, and raising several specimen herbs for analysis and
study. Routinely queried by editors and writers for several
different popular and scientific health-oriented journals, and by producers
of radio and television networks, both conservative and liberal, Duke
recently has given accredited continuing education lectures on herbal
medicine, pros and cons, to chiropractors, nurses, nurse practitioners,
pharmacists, and physicians.
In addition to scores of popular and scientific articles, Duke has published several pertinent books: (1) Handbook of Legumes of World Economic Importance, Plenum Press, New York, 345 pp., 1981; (2) Medicinal Plants of the Bible, Trado-Medic Books, Buffalo, New York, 233 pp., 1981; (3) CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 704 pp., 1985; (4) Culinary Herbs: A Potpourri, Trado-Medic Books, Buffalo, New York, 195 pp., 1985; (5) Medicinal Plants of China (with E. Ayensu), Reference Publications, Algonac, Michigan, 2 vols., 705 pp., 1985; (6) CRC Handbook of Proximate Analysis Tables of Higher Plants (with A. Atchley), CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 389 pp., 1986; (7) Isthmian Ethnobotanical Dictionary, 3rd edition, Scientific Publishers, Jodhpur, India, 205 pp., 1986; (8) Handbook of Northeastern Indian Medicinal Plants, Quarterman Press, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 212 pp., 1986; (9) Living Liqueurs, Quarterman Press, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 110 pp., 1987; (10) CRC Handbook of Agricultural Energy Potential for Developing Countries (with A. Atchley, K. Ackerson, and P. Duke), CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 4 vols., 1063 pp., 1987; (11) CRC Handbook of Nuts, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 343 pp., 1989; (12) with Steven Foster, a Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, Houghton-Miflin, Boston MA, 366 pp, 1990 (13) Ginseng, a Concise Handbook, Reference Publications, Algonac, Michigan, 273 pp., 1990, (14) CRC Handbook of Edible Weeds, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 1992 and (15) CRC Handbook (and database) of Phytochemical Constituents of GRAS Herbs and Other Economic Plants, 654 pp., 1992 and the CRC Handbook (and Database) of Biological Activities of Phytochemicals (1992), (16) CRC Handbook of Alternative Cash Crops, (J. A. Duke and J. L. duCellier), CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 1993, 536 pp., (18) Duke and Vasquez's Amazonian Ethnobotanical Dictionary in 1994 and (19) Beckstrom-Sternberg and Duke (1996, CRC Handbook of Aromathematics) Number 20, his opus magnum, Green Pharmacy, Rodale Press, is due to be out July, 1997. Currently Dr. Duke, retired from the USDA Sept. 30, is working on three books, Green Pharmacy for Rodale Press, Synergy in Phytomedicines, under consideration by Synergetic Press, and finally, a second edition to the CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs. After he finishes these, Duke threatens to do more talking and less writing. In 1995 he presented more than 200 lectures and/or guided field trips or workshops. 1996 looks busier. Duke is a regular or occasional contributor or editorial adviser to such periodicals as Alternative Medicine Digest, American Health, Business of Herbs, Complementary Medicine for the Physician, Diversity, Economic Botany, The Environmentarian, HerbalGram, Herbs for Health, The International Permaculture Species Yearbook, The Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, Journal of Optimal Nutrition, Journal or Aromatherapy, Mind-Body Connection, Natural Health, Organic Gardening, News from the Herbal Village, and Wild Foods Forum.