Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
medical system that uses medicine in a more-or-less conventional manner for the treatment of dis-
eases. It employs, in a fundamental sense, the same basic methods as Western medicine, with addi-
tional contributions from the spiritual dimension, which gives the healing depth and meaning within
the African cosmology and experience. It cannot be reduced to simple herbalism. African traditional
medicine should also not be seen as a substitute for qualitative health care for the rural poor or (in
the name of conservation of cultural biodiversity) be misconstrued by politicians as a social alibi to
mask the inadequacies of public health programs. It is only one possible tool in health care.
Earlier attempts by some writers have been faulted by the constant importation and superimpo-
sition of preconceived values and concepts to the evaluation of events that they hardly understood.
Some analysts use contemporary perspectives to pass verdicts on events that took place in a dif-
ferent era, sometimes taken completely out of their original context. Many of the authors of topics
on African culture and religion forget that the gods they discussed in those pages were considered
real by those who fashioned them and had once moved humans to acts of consummate worship
and inspired leaders to successful military campaigns. Few of the commentators ever wondered
why many of the practices they considered primitive still hold sway in the minds and lives of many
educated Africans.
Definitions are often limited to our ability to fit new experiences or concepts into our precon-
ceived categories and patterns. One is often reminded of the passage in Borges that was made famous
by Michael Foucault
6
in his monumental work,
The Order of Things
, in which a certain ancient
Chinese encyclopedia stated as follows: “Animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor,
(b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the
present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
(l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.”
Foucault concluded “in the wonderment of this taxonomy, that the thing we apprehend in one great
leap, the thing that, by means of a fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charms of another system of
thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.” But, he explained that
each of the categories mentioned can be assigned a precise meaning and a demonstrable content,
and the classification distinguishes carefully the very real animals (those that are frenzied or have
just broken the water pitcher) and those that belong to fantastic entities (fabulous animals or sirens).
The possibility of dangerous mixtures or forced powers of contagion have to be exorcised to retain
the meanings within that system of thought. In traditional African medicine, we are faced with a
system of medicine that does not fit into the familiar landmarks of the Western thought process, and
that is the problem. For example, the association between rituals and healing is often misinterpreted
by foreigners who isolate them out of their context. The familiar question has been: What were they
(the plants and artifacts) used for? What do they do? And, most people are disappointed when they
receive the correct answer: “Nothing.”
The bulk of this volume, however, provides scientific documentation of the correlation between
the observed folk use and demonstrable biological activity, as well as the characterized constituents
of the plants. It is essential that the study of traditional medicine, if it is not to become chimerical
and lose itself in arbitrary speculation, must begin with the dry, structural, and systematic analysis
of the methods and the objects used in the healing practice. Studies of anthropology, botany, chem-
istry, pharmacology, and even clinical evaluation of the remedies are useful standpoints to begin
such inquiry. But, the investigation must not stop with such structural studies, for healing is deeply
rooted in humanity; these studies, when properly considered and handled, should lead back to it.
This is the fundamental approach adopted in this topic. It is a topic on medicinal plants used in
African traditional medicine and is also a handbook of African plants with medicinal values. The
plants are presented both as drugs, ready and complete as they are, and as vessels with chemical
constituents that possess pharmacological activity.
Several medicinal plants of Africa have been investigated for their chemical components, and
some of the isolated compounds have been shown to possess interesting biological activity. A few
