Essential oils found in the smoke of "tira-capeta", a cigarette used by some quilombolas living in pantanal wetlands of Brazil

Abstract

An ethnopharmacological survey developed among quilombolas living in Sesmaria Mata-Cavalos, in the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil; a cigarette known as "tira-capeta" (removingthe-devil), had been cited mainly "to improve memory and cognition", and also showed other therapeutical indications, such as: "against sinusitis", "to avoid cold", "to relieve sleep problems". The purpose of the present study was carried out a screening of essential oils delivered in the heating of plants used to produce the "tira-capeta" cigarette, using a simple, rapid and solvent-free method based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and headspace solid-phase microextraction. The principal essential oils found were 1,8 cineole, camphor and α-pinene. In the tentative to correlate these constituents with therapeutical indications reported by the quilombolas, were found some works carried out by many authors that corroborated the therapeutical indications reported by the quilombolas.