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Traditional healing practice using medicinal herbs
PRESENT AND FUTURE
mmm Traditional healing practice using medicinal herbs
frican traditional traditional healer until you have experienced a call to medical practitioners priesthood. This is recognised are extensively used in as an illness, the symptoms of South Africa and are an which are caused by ancestral important national health-care Philip S Kubukeli spirits who wish to possess the resource. Traditional healers future traditional healer. It is a holy calling that comes from are potentially valuable partners in the delivery of health G o d via ancestral spirits. T h e sickness may c o m e at any care. T h e y are already available, ubiquitous in most cases, age, but is most prevalent during adolescence and the and share the same culture, beliefs, and values as their menopause. O n c e the call to priesthood is diagnosed, the patients. Their methods are effective in certain illnesses (eg, patient is immediately placed under the case of the psychosomatic illnesses) as is their use of local herbs and traditional healer and enters training as an initiate. Training medicinal plants for therapeutic purposes. T h e y are skilled can last up to 15 years, depending on in interpersonal relations including culture, religion, custom, and ethnic counselling, and can fill the vacuum in group. health care created by the shortage of In the African context, illness always biomedical health personnel for delivery has a reason. The reason is the most of primary health care. T h e y are also important aspect of the disease--more prepared to consider safer practices and important than an exposition of the to eliminate those traditional remedies illness itself. In the African traditional and practices harmful to patients. setting, the question " W h y am I ill?" is Health is defined by the W H O as a more important than "~¢'hat is the complete state of physical and mental nature of my illness?". It follows, wellbeing, and not merely the absence therefore, that a detailed biomedical of disease or infirmity. This definition is explanation based on the germ theory is in line with the practice of traditional foreign and irrelevant to African healers who look at the whole body concepts of illness. (physical, mental, spiritual), whereas T h e medicinal use of herbs is said to biomedicine heals only the affected be as old as mankind itself. W H O parts of the body and is forever looking estimates that herbalism is three to four for germs. times more commonly practised than It is generally accepted that the conventional medicine worldwide. And African traditional healer understands even conventional doctors rely the patient's beliefs about their illness, heavily on plant-based medicines: an and that concepts of health within the Novice accepting the call from his ancestors increasing n u m b e r of prescriptions are framework of African culture are more plant-based. social than they are biological. Although m a n y herbs and plants used medicinally in Traditional healing is to a large extent premised on this. South Africa today were imported from Europe, there is a Part of the appeal of traditional healing is its historic vast array of indigenous medicinal plants here too. More approach that views the patient as more than simply a sum than 400 species of indigenous plants are sold commercially of organ systems and neurophysiological hydraulics. as traditional medicines in KwaZulu-Natal. Traditional Traditional healers were looked upon by the medicine using herbs is widely practised throughout the govemment, missionaries, and biomedicine as charlatans rest of southern Africa. S o m e plants are so popular that the and unscrupulous antagonists of biomedicine who demand for t h e m is threatening their very survival on the exploited an ignorant population. But African traditional subcontinent. healing practices are based on beliefs that existed long before the development and spread of m o d e r n medicine. Today, there is increased These practices vary widely between different African sensitivity towards traditional healers' issues. Along countries, in keeping with their social and cultural heritages with the rest of the world, and traditions. the South African DepartTraditional healing expertise is intricately intertwined m e n t of Health is looking at with cultural and cosmic phenomenology. Although it is improving conditions for not possible to find a single African traditional healing traditional healers' assocsystem, the differences between cultures south of the iations. In addition, the Sahara are sufficiently small for generalisations to be made National Indigenous Knowwithin certain limits. T o understand the African traditional healer and the ledge Systems P r o g r a m m e is working towards registration whole traditional process, one needs to understand African with the objective that religion. T h e whole African belief system is so fundamental it will lead to the protection that any form of healing process that ignores these beliefs of intellectual property is psychologically unsatisfactory and in some cases rights, equitable compenunaccountable. It is the only coherent system that has maintained the social equilibrium of the African people for sation, promotion, and the improvement of traditonal generations. healing systems. In the Black culture of Africa you cannot b e c o m e a
A
The Lancet • 2000 • 354 • December • 1999
s~v24
mmm Traditional healing practice using medicinal herbs
frican traditional traditional healer until you have experienced a call to medical practitioners priesthood. This is recognised are extensively used in as an illness, the symptoms of South Africa and are an which are caused by ancestral important national health-care Philip S Kubukeli spirits who wish to possess the resource. Traditional healers future traditional healer. It is a holy calling that comes from are potentially valuable partners in the delivery of health G o d via ancestral spirits. T h e sickness may c o m e at any care. T h e y are already available, ubiquitous in most cases, age, but is most prevalent during adolescence and the and share the same culture, beliefs, and values as their menopause. O n c e the call to priesthood is diagnosed, the patients. Their methods are effective in certain illnesses (eg, patient is immediately placed under the case of the psychosomatic illnesses) as is their use of local herbs and traditional healer and enters training as an initiate. Training medicinal plants for therapeutic purposes. T h e y are skilled can last up to 15 years, depending on in interpersonal relations including culture, religion, custom, and ethnic counselling, and can fill the vacuum in group. health care created by the shortage of In the African context, illness always biomedical health personnel for delivery has a reason. The reason is the most of primary health care. T h e y are also important aspect of the disease--more prepared to consider safer practices and important than an exposition of the to eliminate those traditional remedies illness itself. In the African traditional and practices harmful to patients. setting, the question " W h y am I ill?" is Health is defined by the W H O as a more important than "~¢'hat is the complete state of physical and mental nature of my illness?". It follows, wellbeing, and not merely the absence therefore, that a detailed biomedical of disease or infirmity. This definition is explanation based on the germ theory is in line with the practice of traditional foreign and irrelevant to African healers who look at the whole body concepts of illness. (physical, mental, spiritual), whereas T h e medicinal use of herbs is said to biomedicine heals only the affected be as old as mankind itself. W H O parts of the body and is forever looking estimates that herbalism is three to four for germs. times more commonly practised than It is generally accepted that the conventional medicine worldwide. And African traditional healer understands even conventional doctors rely the patient's beliefs about their illness, heavily on plant-based medicines: an and that concepts of health within the Novice accepting the call from his ancestors increasing n u m b e r of prescriptions are framework of African culture are more plant-based. social than they are biological. Although m a n y herbs and plants used medicinally in Traditional healing is to a large extent premised on this. South Africa today were imported from Europe, there is a Part of the appeal of traditional healing is its historic vast array of indigenous medicinal plants here too. More approach that views the patient as more than simply a sum than 400 species of indigenous plants are sold commercially of organ systems and neurophysiological hydraulics. as traditional medicines in KwaZulu-Natal. Traditional Traditional healers were looked upon by the medicine using herbs is widely practised throughout the govemment, missionaries, and biomedicine as charlatans rest of southern Africa. S o m e plants are so popular that the and unscrupulous antagonists of biomedicine who demand for t h e m is threatening their very survival on the exploited an ignorant population. But African traditional subcontinent. healing practices are based on beliefs that existed long before the development and spread of m o d e r n medicine. Today, there is increased These practices vary widely between different African sensitivity towards traditional healers' issues. Along countries, in keeping with their social and cultural heritages with the rest of the world, and traditions. the South African DepartTraditional healing expertise is intricately intertwined m e n t of Health is looking at with cultural and cosmic phenomenology. Although it is improving conditions for not possible to find a single African traditional healing traditional healers' assocsystem, the differences between cultures south of the iations. In addition, the Sahara are sufficiently small for generalisations to be made National Indigenous Knowwithin certain limits. T o understand the African traditional healer and the ledge Systems P r o g r a m m e is working towards registration whole traditional process, one needs to understand African with the objective that religion. T h e whole African belief system is so fundamental it will lead to the protection that any form of healing process that ignores these beliefs of intellectual property is psychologically unsatisfactory and in some cases rights, equitable compenunaccountable. It is the only coherent system that has maintained the social equilibrium of the African people for sation, promotion, and the improvement of traditonal generations. healing systems. In the Black culture of Africa you cannot b e c o m e a
A
The Lancet • 2000 • 354 • December • 1999
s~v24