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Russell Marker, a chemist who contributed to the development of steroids that would later be used in the contraceptive (birth control) pill, recounts his travels in Mexico looking for wild yam plants. Also includes graphics showing a map of the USA, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, zooming into Orizaba in Mexico. Marker says, 'At that time, they [the Mexican government] supplied me with a botanist, who was a Mexican who had a collecting permit. And we started out to get this plant but because of so much difficulty that we ran into from the villagers, the botanist decided that he didn't want to have anything to do with it and we came back to Mexico. And the embassy advised me to come back to the States - to take the next train out in the evening. Instead of taking the train out, I got on a bus and I went down to Orizaba, near which I could find this plant. I took a bus from Orizaba down into the jungle - about ten miles away and there I met a man who told me that he could find the plant for me if I would come back the next day. I went back the next day and got two specimens.' Filmed in the USA in the mid-1970s. (LSF5528N - AEVZ001J)