Plantas medicinales, aromáticas o venenosas de Cuba fue concebida, tanto para personas con conocimientos científicos, como para el sujeto común. Según el propio Roig, sus objetivos al crearla fueron “facilitar información –lo más completa y exacta que sea posible– acerca de nuestras plantas medicinales o venenosas; proporcionar a nuestros estudiantes de Botánica, Farmacia, Medicina, Agronomía y Veterinaria una fuente de consulta; impulsar el estudio sistemático de la flora médica y toxicológica cubana; y estimular el cultivo y la explotación de las plantas medicinales indígenas o naturalizadas, para crear una industria farmacéutica cubana capaz de proporcionar empleo en las zonas rurales, laboratorios y oficinas comerciales”. En la actualidad, el saber reunido en esta obra constituye consulta obligatoria para todo estudioso de la Botánica o de otras disciplinas afines.

This impressive study contains five sections on poisonous plants from the tropics. Three of the sections are devoted to plants that provoke skin allergies. Contains 13 color plates.

The Cuban health care system has been the focus of much international attention and debate while revealing jarring contrasts. Long publicized as the Cuban Revolution’s greatest accomplishment, it is also a system covered by such a thick wall of political ideology that critical analysis is difficult. Its medical missions in Haiti and other developing countries have generated good will toward the Castro government, even as humanitarian groups in North America and Europe organize shipments of medicines and medical equipment to Cuban clinics and hospitals plagued by shortages of the most basic supplies. No country’s health care system functions independently of its economy, and over the years, Cuba’s medical services and public health indicators have improved at some intervals and declined at others. Cuban authorities have been closing medical facilities and making other cutbacks in the health budget, amid reported outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever in several parts of the country. The Cuban health care system is facing more upheaval as the country begins to look ahead to a post-Castro Cuba and the changes this could entail.