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A n a i s d o I HM T
dices which hindered the application of his overly new
science. Most often, he discovered the reactions to, the
and conceptions of, health through his own social group,
sometimes via his own family. Typically, physicians shared
the sensibilities of the patient so well, that they slowly
abandoned the basis of science, and progressively plunged
into “medical empiricism”. The gap between medical the-
ory and practice acknowledges the danger of the “agents
of health” who are often without scientific training, aside
from a very summary sketch of physiology, pathology and
therapeutics which, according to Claude Bernard [7], con-
stitute the fundamentals of scientific medicine.
Furthermore, the confusion of terms about African medi-
cal practices was developed in the course of the colonial
period by early anthropologists and Christian missionar-
ies, many of whom did not understand African languages
(or understood them poorly).Through their views, the im-
ages of African healers were degraded and tarnished.They
called them charlatans, superstitious imposters, sorcerers,
medicine men,
mganga
(Swahili for healer), wise men,
seers, curers, herbalists, Bantu medicine, diviners, etc.
A better concept:
empiric-metaphysical medicine
Using the concept of
traditional medicine
, traders, explorers,
and missionaries, and later colonial physicians, devalued and
denatured African medical practices.Through the word “tra-
dition”, one understands a static situation, without change.
In fact, as we clearly observe, African medicines have not
been without change. Change was slow, but there was a shift
which demonstrates the inappropriate character of the term
“
traditional medicine”
. By contrast, we can see the relevance of
the concept
empiric-metaphysical medicine
to describe African
medical practice.
Empiric-metaphysical medicine
highlights two principles of Af-
rican medicine, the empirical functioning and the resort to
metaphysics. -Empiricism is the reproduction of something
by observation, by imitation, by experience. With time, it
becomes an automatism where the faculty of reasoning is
rarely being used.This manner of thinking or this approach
transmits from generation to generation. Explanation by re-
course to tradition supposed that societies were locked in a
changeless environment without contacts with other socie-
ties. In several African countries, colonization with policy of
Assimilation or Association disrupted the permanence that
governs empiricism. It produced a rupture,
which had al-
ready been created in many societies by previous movements
provoked by migrations and conquests before the colonial
period
. Medical empiricism has not remained without dy-
namism. Change has been very slow, but it presses on nev-
ertheless. Metaphysics plays an equally important role in
empiric-metaphysical medicine.
The confusion due
to theWorld Health Organization
Given this discussion, it is impossible to agree with the defi-
nition ofAfrican medicine given by the committee of experts
in 1976 at their meeting in Brazzaville [2]. According to the
report, “traditional medicine might …be defined as the sum
total of all the knowledge and practices, whether explica-
ble or not, used in diagnosis, prevention and elimination of
physical, mental or social imbalance and relying exclusively
on practical experience and observation handed down from
generation to generation whether verbally or in writing”.
This definition lays stress on the non--scientific character of
African medicine, indirectly denying the capacity of African
medical practice to adapt. African medicine does not regard
man as a purely physical entity, but also takes into considera-
tion the sociological environment (ancestors whether living
or dead) and the “intangible forces” of the Universe such as
spirits and gods.The problem is due to the lack of historical
distance in this definition.The presence of a historian among
the experts would have served to prevent this mistaken anal-
ysis, because the concept of “tradition” perpetuates a flawed
portrait of a changeless landscape.The experts ofWHO did
not use the word empiricism in order to not recognize the
capacity of African medicine to change; nor did they recog-
nize the importance of technical, elementary and practical
experiments inAfrican medicine even though in many coun-
tries in the 1960s, these experts attempted to incorporate
medicinal plants into the program of social and economic
development as inTanzania, Kenya, Mali, Cameroun.
The beginning of modern medicine in Africa was during the
early days of the colonial period, with its presence on the
coastal region, particularly in the factories, before colonial
conquest. The feeble medical knowledge of this period did
not facilitate the tasks of the colonial physicians, and their
prejudice dominated their observations and analyses. For
instance, like several African ethnic groups, colonial physi-
cians believed that sleeping sickness was caused by the action
of sorcerers or diviners. They thought that leprosy was he-
reditary, that yellow fever and malaria were provoked after
breathing polluted air coming from the marshes. Many of
these physicians were discovering African lands for the first
time.
1 - Grann C. H. and Duigan P. wrote in their book (1968) “Burden of Empire An
appraisal of Western Colonialism in Africa England, London, South of the Sahara,
Pall Mall Press, UK : “The African doctor was a shrewd botanist, but more much
his therapy, like Dr Faust’s, depended on sympathetic magic.A patient with a weak
back would be treated with a mixture of the powdered bones of a python’s back,
injected at the site of his pain.The muscles of lion’s heart were used to strengthen
soldiers about to go to battle. Bantu healers were imagined to possess a healing
spirit who would find the right remedies and thus wielded tremendous psycholo-
gical influence. They could not, however, cure their patients of malaria, sleeping
sleekness, bilharziasis, hookworm, or similar parasitic diseases. …. Disease that
confronted Bantu society with an insoluble problem, and the image of the hale and
hearty tribesman was often just a storywriter’s dream. In tropical Africa a very
large number of people were, and still are, chronically ill from the hour they born
to the hour of their death, and their life expectancy is still low –about thirty-five
years”. cf. p.283.