The traditional roots of modern medicine

The African’s practice of medicine is a mixture of the traditional and the western. This stems from our understanding of illness: as the effect of both physical and metaphysical causes.

Western medicine cures only those ‘physical’ ailments for which it has managed to find cures. We have a lot more ‘physical’ ailments against which Western medicine is quite simply impotent, so far. The psychotherapeutic care of traditional African healing has been praised by many Western doctors. And the tradition is so deeply embedded in our culture that even the educated elites resort to them. Our dual understanding of disease as the effect of both physcial and metaphysical forces means that our prescriptions usually involve the use of, herbs, animal substances, prayers and incantations. This holistic and comprehensive approach to medical care also defines the Eastern tradition - both Taoism and Hinduism share this metaphysical view of man.

However, this dual approach to medical care should not be confused with the magical invocations of the visionary or the cult-healer. It is more accurate to see it as a recognition, imaginatively grasped, of what Western medicine today calls the ‘psychosomatic” nature of many diseases-- ie, the aggravation of physical illness by mental conflict or stress. so, What better medical approach to have than a comprehensive one? Through trial and error, especially in herbal medication, we’ve come to crystalise what works and what does not.

We often forget that the pharmaceutical industry ‘has its roots in the ancient art of botanising’, and blockbuster synthetic drugs, like aspirin and heroin, were minor modifications of molecules extracted from, respectively, willow bark and poppy seed-pods.’ The superiority of western medicine is not borne out by the evidence: according to the WHO, out of a 119 plant-derived pharmaceutical medicines, 74% of them are used “in modern medicine in ways that correlate directly with their traditional uses by native cultures”. The chinese, for example, have been using the herb, ephedra, to cure asthma for over 2000 years, in the same way that today’s commercial pharmaceutical companies are doing. In fact we can claim the superiority of herbal medication, given the speedy toxicity of synthesised drugs, even in small doses.

Even Western society subsisted on herbal medication for centuries before the discovery and synthesis of anti-biotics. Nicholas Culperer’s, The English Physician, was a valued herbal pharmacopeia, which is still widely consulted today. 80% of the world’s population use herbal medicine. Are they all wrong? There are about 750,000 plants, and very few of them have been studied by Western science. There must be many cultures in the world with knowledge of certain plants which western science does not have. These western scientist must return to the classroom and learn from the oldest primary care system in the world.