treating her client Jamu is believed to have originated in the
Mataram kingdom era, 1300 years ago. The stone
mortar and pestle with long cylindrical stone mortar — the type commonly used in today's traditional jamu making- was discovered in Liyangan archaeological site on the slopes of
Mount Sundoro,
Central Java. The site and relics are dated from
Mataram kingdom era circa 8th to 10th century, which suggests that the herbal medicine tradition of jamu had already taken hold by then. The
bas-reliefs on
Borobudur depict images of people grinding something with stone mortar and pestle, drink sellers, physicians and
masseuse treating their clients. Jamu was (and still) practiced as one of the spiritual requirements of the indigenous physicians (
dukuns). However, it is generally prepared and prescribed by women who sell it on the streets. Generally, the different jamu prescriptions are not written down but handed down between generations. Some early handbooks, however, have survived. A jamu handbook that was used in households throughout the
Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) was published in 1911 by Mrs. Kloppenburg-Versteegh. One of the first European physicians to study jamu was
Jacobus Bontius (Jacob de Bondt), who was a physician in
Batavia (present-day
Jakarta) in the early seventeenth century. His writings contain information about indigenous medicine of
Java. A comprehensive book on indigenous herbal medicine in the
Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) was published by
Rumphius, who worked in
Ambon during early eighteenth century. He published a book called
Herbaria Amboinesis (The Ambonese Spice Book). During the nineteenth century, European physicians had a keen interest in jamu, as they often did not know how to treat the diseases they encountered in their patients in the
Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). The German physician Carl Waitz published on jamu in 1829. In the 1880s and 1890s, A.G. Vorderman published extensive accounts on jamu as well. Pharmacological research on herbal medicine was undertaken by M. Greshoff and W.G. Boorsma at the pharmacological laboratory at the
Bogor Botanical Garden ==Popularity==