Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
cure the patient faster. A basic African tenet in the administration of drugs in traditional medical
practice is that it is the body and God that are expected to heal the patient and not drugs; therefore,
the dispensation of toxic herbs is a recent innovation. The major plants used as ingredients for the
treatment of the most prevalent diseases in Africa are listed in the discussions that follow. The dif-
ference between the plants in this section and the ethnomedical data in Chapter 2 is that plants are
discussed here within the context of treatment modalities, and they are rarely prescribed alone.
DIaGNOSIS
The common ailments are easily recognized and treated successfully without much ado. Simple
symptoms are related to diseases, and patients can sometimes make their own diagnosis, alone
or with the help of neighbors. A local medicine man or a neighbor, knowledgeable in herbs, will
prescribe herbs based on the symptomatology of the disease. In such cases, only mild drugs are
dispensed, and recovery is expected within a day or two.
If the illness persists, the patient's recourse is to the diviner or fortune-teller, who very likely
decides that either an evil deity or the spirit of a deceased relative is responsible. The aim here is
to discover the cause of the illness, prescribe the appropriate rituals, and proceed with the needed
treatment of the disease. The method the diviner uses to achieve this is as varied and arcane as one's
imagination permits, but fundamental to all these is the experience of the diviner himself. He or she
bases the decision on information gathered from the patient, previous knowledge of the client, and
even public opinion. In cases of doubt, the healer consults the oracle, makes sacrifices, and performs
rituals to solicit the right answer from the spirits. The methods may be vague, but they are undoubt-
edly a very good diagnosticians.
Some of the factors that can cause disease are (1) sorcery, (2) breach of taboo, (3) spirit intrusion,
(4) diseased object, (5) ghosts of the dead, and (6) acts of God and gods. The patients collaborate
with the diviner in determining the cause of their sickness. It is usual for a diviner to ask a patient
quite frankly what taboo the patient has broken, who his or her personal enemies are, and which
gods the patient has failed to thank for favors granted. Sometimes, a witch may be responsible for
the sickness, and the witch has to be exposed for an effective treatment to be possible. In some cases,
the diviner may decide beforehand who can best be spared from the community and so conduct his
divination and ritual so that some poor old man or woman will be declared guilty and so be caught
and killed. The accused has a right to opt for a trial by ordeal. Public opinion and rumors help the
diviner to catch the right person. According to Harley,
1
this is a situation where diagnosis of the dis-
ease extends into the realm of justice, as interpreted by the community as a whole. The healing act,
therefore, becomes a societal cleansing exercise, a moral regeneration to sustain the community's
ethics and beliefs.
Precision and accuracy are demanded as much in the treatment of psychiatric cases as in cases
of fractures and other traumatic injuries. The medicine man can spend several hours pondering
the nature of damage and the appropriate remedy. Proper diagnosis is the key to most traditional
treatments. The various treatments discussed in this chapter may not apply in all cases since no two
ailments are exactly the same to an African medicine man. Each patient is treated as a unique case.
Symptoms of Diseases
1.
Behavioral Changes:
It is generally accepted that many diseases and conditions lead to changes in
behavior. The first questions asked relate to the patient's eating habits: Has the patient been drink-
ing? Eaten a mushroom? Taken any drugs? and other questions. If the behavioral change is second-
ary (i.e., after sickness), then the patient is believed to be depressed from the illness and is not taken
seriously. If the behavioral changes are sporadic and of a dramatic nature, then the healer has to
